The Life You Save May Be Your Own Summary

What type of person comes to mind when one hears “sinner”? Perhaps the mind is clogged with pictures of demonic entities or violence. Others may conjure up images of the Ten Commandments. “The Life You Save may be your Own” by Flannery O’Connor is filled with sin. This story focuses on faith, religion, and refusing redemption. From sayings and signs to the author’s view of faith, one can learn about how sin can affect the lives of these characters.

To start, Mr. Shiftlet is the main sinner and character of the story. This story starts with the highly frowned upon blasphemy, or the act of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things. Blasphemy occurs when Mr. Shiftlet he looked up at the sunset and slowly put arms up to form a crooked cross . By making this crooked cross, Mr. Shiftlet emulates the way Jesus died on the cross. This part also foreshadows the fact that Mr. Shiftlet has crooked Christian beliefs; he is all talk and no action. On top of that, the author mentions that he has long, black, silky hair, this is how Jesus is usually depicted. Mr. Shiftlet likes to act as if he can perform miracles. An example of this is when the story states, “He had an expression of serious modesty on his face as if he had just raised the dead”(6). Not only is that blasphemy, but it is also prideful. This act is prideful because he is so proud of himself that he does not stay humble. When the author says, “an

expression of serious modesty”, it shows that he probably thinks that without him, nothing good would happen; without him the car would never run. Pride is one of the deadly sins, it hurts the mother and her daughter later on; when his pride leads him to abandon them. Continuing on, Mr. Shiftlet is greedy. In the beginning of the story, Mr. Shiftlet tells the old woman that money does not mean much, but refused to marry Lucynell because he had no money. Mr. Shiftlet is given a home, car, and a type of wife he has desired, but tries to milk more out of the old woman out of pure greed.
Furthermore, according to Christianity, sinning is human and okay as long as it is not deliberate and the sinner repents. After all, Christianity is based on the fact that Jesus died on the cross because if a sinner accepts them they can be forgiven. Mr. Shiftlet does just the opposite. He deliberately sins without salvation and believes that he is pure. Evidence of this is when Flannery O’Connor wrote, “Mr. Shiftlet felt that the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him. He raised his arm and let it all to his breast. ‘Oh Lord!’ he prayed. ‘Break forth and wash the slime from this earth!’”(10). Slime being the sin. Mr. Shiftlet never mentions that he is the slime, but that the rest of the world is the slime and the evil. He believes the rest of the world needs to be washed off and ignores the fact that he too is very much a sinner. Mr. Shifltet’s delusion leaves him a crooked Christian by refusing to repent. Mr. Shiftlet not only needs forgiveness from God but from the old woman and her daughter too. Instead of going to Mobile, he should have kept his word and stayed with them.
Nevertheless, this leads on to the fact that the old woman is a sinner as well. On page four, the old woman says, “I wouldn’t give her up for a casket of jewels”(4). Besides the irony of this statement, it also shows how one of the deadly sins, greed, can change a person. The old woman wanted Mr. Shiftlet to marry Lucynell, evidence of this is when the author wrote, “He had patched the front and back steps, built a new hog pen, restored a fence, and taught Lucynell, who was completely deaf and had never said a word in her life, to say the word ‘bird’”(5). It is clear that Mr. Shiftlet was useful to them, but it goes a step further when it also says, “The old woman watched from a distance, secretly pleased. She was ravenous for a son-in-law”(5). She did not want a son-in-law because Lucynell loved him, but because she would and did benefit from him. This is selfish and inconsiderate on the old woman’s side.
To digress, if a reader knows about O’Connor’s view of faith, this would make sense. As a Catholic, O’Connor has very traditional views on how religion and redemption work. Catholics believe that all humans sin, and the only way they can be saved is through Jesus Christ, thus the title “The Life you Save may be your Own”. It is quite transparent that Mr. Shiftlet is a sinner, he believes he will be saved. Throughout the whole story, not once does Mr. Shiftlet repent his sins, to add, he thinks he is elite and the only holy being on earth. O’Connor must be reflecting on the values of some Christians that have the same sort of habits and attitude in their faith as Mr. Shiftlet. It would also make sense if her intentions were to show how some of the seven deadly sins take effect on the sinner and the person it was toward. An example is the fact that Mr. Shiftlet and the old woman focused on their own desires and without thinking about Lucynell. They did this because of another one of the seven deadly sins, envy. The old woman envied Mr. Shiftlet’s skills, while he envied her property and belongings. Lucynell ends up being married to a man she barely knows for a mom that doesn’t think about her daughter’s consent. Lucynell eventually ends up paying the price by being abandoned by her selfish and sketchy husband. She was being treated as a disposable object from the sins of her mother and Mr. Shiftlet.
To conclude, from signs to point of view of the author, one can learn about how religion can affect a sinner’s life.

The author shows that no matter what humans do, they will affect one another in positive and negative ways. Every person is a sinner, and every person hurts people. The reader gets a bird’s eye view on how the characters deal with their situations. With incorporating ideas relevant to her beliefs, such as the seven deadly sins; perhaps O’Connor thought that her audience could learn about religion and why it is important to ask for

forgiveness.