In the narrative “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, Flannery O’Conner portrays Mr. Shiftlet to be a manipulative and self-interest character. Even though the mother of the antagonist, Lucynelll Crater, is also depicted as a scheming character, Mr. Shiftlet is seen more of a wicked man than a woman who tries to marry off her daughter. O’Connor describes Mr. Shiftlet’s way of thinking as he tends to only act on his selfish tendencies also his personality trait to be more of a callous side by doing this Flannery O’Conner creates this antihero and the story of Mr. Shiftlet taking advantage of a single mother and her deaf child. To begin with, the almost villainous character of Mr. Shift is created by Flannery O’Connor by the means of creating …show more content…
O’Connor reveals more to this negative personality trait when Mr. Shiftlet and his soon-to-be wife’s mother is arguing about the amount of money that is needed when taking a honeymoon, “It takes money. Some people’ll do anything anyhow these days, but the way I think, I wouldn’t marry no woman that I couldn’t take on a trip…” (O’Connor 840). At this moment in the story the author is foreshadowing what Mr. Shiftlet actually does with the money that both Lucynell and he agree upon. This moment also adds more to the personality of Mr. Shiftlet, creating a figurative mask that would hide his true intentions with Lucynell’s daughter, the car that Mr. Shiflet graciously offers to fix, and the money that the mother offers to give Mr. Shiftlet for the honeymoon. Flannery O’Connor also describes when Mr. Shiftlet teaches the deaf Lucynell Crater to speak the word “bird”, “He [Mr. Shiftlet] said he never would have been able to teach Lucynell to say a word if he hadn’t cared and stopped long enough” (O’Connor 839). When Mr. Shiftlet does teach Lucynell to speak, he is not only creating this mask to hide his true personality again but he is taking advantage of the deaf woman. This also creates the appearance that Mr. Shift actually cares about Lucynell, when in reality he does not. In brief, Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” tells