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Mr. Shiftlet, his almost-empty shirtsleeve flapping outside the driver's window, begins driving into a storm: a stray lone wolf outside Noah's Ark. As the storm is about to "Break forth and wash the slime from this earth" (O'Connor) Mr. Shiftlet seems, especially now, a demon of deceit. But there is also more to him. O'Connor states early in the story, that against "an expanse of sky... his figure formed a crooked cross" [emphasis added]. A "crooked cross" is still a cross, if imperfect. Mr. Shiftlet says later:
lemme tell you something. There's one of these doctors in Atlanta that's taken knife and cut the human heart -- the human heart,... out of a man's chest and held it in his hand," "and studied it like it was a day-old chicken, and lady," he don't know no more about it than you or me (O'Connor, "The Life
You Save May be Your Own")
Here he is arguably a prophet seeing clearly the best and the worst human capacities, entwined. For all his frothy declarations about purity, he is most impure. His foil (he thinks), Lucynell the elder, is no better. He sees in his/her own opportunism.
Mr. Shiftlet...
His next stop, as the story ends, is Mobile, an Alabama destination Flannery O'Connor does not select by accident. He will keep moving, as always. The older Lucynell gets her house repaired (if not a permanent son-in-law). She would not have, had Mr. Shiftlet not arrived. The younger Lucynell is delivered to where her angelic sleepy appearance is sublimely beautiful to a man. Her "Burrttddt" gets wings. In the end, the various desires of everyone's hearts are imperfectly satisfied. Mr. Shiftlet says early on that even a skilled cardiac surgeon cutting the human heart into pieces for study "don't know no more about it than you or me" (O'Connor, "The Life You Save May be Your Own"). The less literal truth of that is now more apparent. With his premeditation and deceit Mr. Shiftlet shows a demonic side. Yet he is also a prophet, accurately portending the flawed results of his and strangers' heartfelt strivings.
Works Cited
O'Connor, Flannery. "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" [online]. Retrieved March 26, 2007, from: http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/lifeyousave.htm.
Works Cited
O'Connor, Flannery. "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" [online]. Retrieved March 26, 2007, from: http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/lifeyousave.htm.
Flannery O'Connor Writing is an ancient art, used from long ago to convey various aspects, including entertainment, education, recording of history, critiquing and rebuking, writing revelations and many other purposes. There are various forms of writing, in which authors engage to put forth their feelings and intention. Additionally, history has many prolific and congruent writers who made names for themselves through writing instinctively about various themes and issues. Among the writers
"You've got good blood! I know you wouldn't shoot a lady! I know you come from nice people! Pray! Jesus, you ought not to shoot a lady.... "Lady,"...There were two more pistol reports and the grandmother raised her head like a parched old turkey hen crying for water and called, "Bailey Boy, Bailey Boy!" As if her heart would break. "Jesus was the only One that ever raised the
..if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." [8] in O'Connor's case, that somebody was lupus. End notes. 1] O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Archived at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/goodman.html 2] Knickerbopcker, Eric. "Flannery O'Connor: Heaven Suffereth Violence" Available at http://www.mrrena.com/flannery.shtml 3] O'Connor, Flannery. "Everything that Rises Must Converge." Archived at http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/oconnorconverge.html 4] O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Archived at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/goodman.html 5] Galloway, Patrick. "The
Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, in the Deep South-East of the United States in 1925. Her adolescence was marked by the death of her father, from whom she later inherited the disease, deadly enemy with whom she fought, without surrender, for a lifetime. (Ann, pp74-78) However, her childhood was marked by more or less serene moments; she was taken to be, at the age of 6 years, a minor
He then utters the story's baffling last line, "It's no real pleasure in life" (O'Connor 1955b, 456). Thus, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" can be read as something of the inverse, or parallel, parable to "Good Country People": In the former, nihilism, or the absence of belief, wins out over faith, despite the Misfit's ugly admonition that his anti-programmatic perception of the world is ultimately not firm
Flannery O'Connor's literature has been described as grotesque, Catholic, Southern, and even gothic. Her work has also been recognized for its harsh humor and criticism of the south. Much of her literature reflects the hostilities she experienced against racist southern attitudes, social structures, and southern ways of life. She was awarded three O. Henry awards for short fiction during her life as well as numerous grants and fellowships. After her