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The Life You Save May Be Your Own Character Analysis

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In the story “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O'Connor, the author describes an elderly woman and her thirty-two year-old, deaf-mute daughter, both named Lucynell Crater and a wandering one-armed man named Tom Shiftlet. Shiflet wishes for the inoperative automobile which Mrs.Craters husband left behind when he passed away. O’Conner uses symbolism and irony several times throughout the story.
For instance the title of the story is taken from the road sign that says “Drive carefully. The life you save may be your own” Tom Shiftlet sees as he drives. This suggests that Shiftlet should be more apprehensive about his own redemption than for being anyone else’s savior. O’Connor uses peacocks to symbolize unrecognized beauty and Lucynell’s significant innocence as her eyes are described as “blue as a peacock’s neck.” The turnip-shaped cloud also hold significance. The fact that the cloud is exactly the color of the hitchhiker’s hat emphasizes the hitchhiker’s role as deliverer of Shiftlet’s moment of grace.
When Shiftlet speaks to the hitchhiker about his …show more content…
Blue, the color of her dress when we first see her, and of her eyes, is associated with heaven and heavenly love and has become the traditional color associated with the Virgin Mary in Christian art. The white of her wedding dress is, of course, usually representative of innocence and purity. Green, the color which Shiftlet paints the car, while representing vegetation and spring, has also been considered suggestive of charity and the regeneration of the soul through good works. Yellow, the color of the band which he paints over the green, and of the fat moon which appears in the branches of the fig tree, is frequently used to suggest betrayal, treason, and deceit. Finally, the sun, given a color only late in the story, is described as a "reddening ball" red, normally associated with blood, passion,

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