Life You Save May Be Your Own, By Flannery O Connor

696 Words2 Pages

“Teach her to say ‘sugarpie’” is said by Mrs. Crater in the story The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Flannery O’Conner. This short southern gothic story is about a shifty man named Mr. Shiftlet, a deceitful mother known as Mrs. Crater, and her daughter, Lucynell. To say Mrs. Crater is worse than Mr. Shiftlet is an understatement. In short, Mrs. Crater shows her deceitful side throughout this story, proving her to be more of an awful person than that of Mr. Shiftlet. Moreover, Mrs. Crater shows her deceitful, cunning personality when Mr. Shiftlet shows up to their property and realizes Lucynell, her daughter is deaf and even a mute. The story states, “He had patched the front and back steps, built a new hog pen, restored a fence, and taught …show more content…

“” Is said by Mrs. Crater when discussing the future marriage of her daughter, Lucynell and Mr. Shiftlet. This helps prove to the reader that she doesn’t have her daughter’s best interest in sight. She seems to only care about what she, herself, wants. To say Mrs. Crater is inferior to Mr. Shiftlet is an exaggeration. On the contrary, it’s plausible to see that Mr. Shiftlet isn’t all that good of a person, though he does seem to help around the property his intentions aren’t admirable. Upon approaching the porch, the passage states, “He turned his back and faced the sunset. He swung both his whole and his short arm up slowly so that they indicated an expanse of sky and his figure formed a crooked cross.” This indicates that Mr. Shiftlet is a man not to be trusted, due to his figure creating a crooked, cross-like figure. Another example would be, “In the darkness, Mr. Shiftlet's smile stretched like a weary snake waking up by a fire.” The words weary, snake, and fire are all indicators that Mr. Shiftlet is cunning and untrustworthy. His actions and demeanor are no match to those of Mrs. Crater’s. Ultimately, when it comes down to identifying a bad character, Mrs. Crater takes the

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