Imagery In 'The Life You Save May Be Your Own'

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Flannery O 'Connor wrote The Life You Save May Be Your Own in 1955. She had a terminal illness and focused many of her stories on the truths of reality. Within this story, she describes an innocent girl, Lucynell, and the dishonest people around her. She keeps Lucynell a constant innocence throughout the story as the other characters lose their purity. The main thing separating Lucynell from the other characters is her lack of sensibility and general awareness of reality. Flannery O’Connor reveals innocence is only for the unaware using color imagery, situational irony, and allusion. Throughout the short story, O’Connor uses color imagery to allude to innocence and corruption. Lucynell is described as a beautiful woman, multiple times. …show more content…

The old woman is eager to rid of her daughter, as her disability makes life difficult for her to handle. The old woman makes up in smarts what she lacks in appearance, and constantly convinces to marry her off to Mr. Shiftlet. She says that she would never give up her daughter "for a casket of jewels" but later sells her off for a meager seventeen dollars fifty (O 'Connor 3). The mother is expected to love her own daughter dearly, yet she sells her off quickly because she knows the reality of her own life. She knows that she cannot live with her daughter forever and live a healthy life. O 'Connor also utilizes situational irony to reveal the malice behind the well-knowing Mr. Shiftlet. Mr. Shiftlet also tries convince Mrs. Crater of his purity and innocence by referencing himself to “the monks of old”. However, he later steals from the women and disproves his innocence. Mr. Shiftlet is seen as a cruel man, his knowledge and shiftiness place him into a role of cruelty. His wants and needs cause him to take cruel actions, something that an oblivious person would not have to experience. Mr. Shiftlet is also pegged as unvirtuous at the end of the story. In the car that he stole, Shiftlet looks to the raining sky and asks for the Lord to “wash the slime from this earth” as he gets wet (O 'Connor 9). The irony plays in from O 'Connor as Shiftlet 's own actions have pegged …show more content…

She sorts out how the knowledge of reality takes away one 's innocence and how staying unaware retains that innocence. The incognizant do not make up the evils of the world, as they do not instigate things they do not know of. Lucynell knows of nothing other than how to function, and she stays perfectly innocent throughout the story despite what happens to her. Innocence is taken away by knowledge, but nothing can bring it

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