What do you think?
Rate this book
The Life You Save May Be Your Own
When Tom Shiftlet arrives on a farm owned by an old woman and her deaf daughter, he is at first only interested in finding a place to stay in exchange for work. However, when the old woman offers her daughter Lucynell to him in marriage, along with a sum of money, he accepts, though his intentions towards the girl remain unclear.
Similar in theme and style to many of other Flannery O'Connor's short stories, "The Life You Save My Be Your Own" was originally published in O'Connor's short story collection, A Good Man Is Hard to Find.
HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.
Similar in theme and style to many of other Flannery O'Connor's short stories, "The Life You Save My Be Your Own" was originally published in O'Connor's short story collection, A Good Man Is Hard to Find.
HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.
19 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1953
6 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Flannery O'Connor
213 books5,296 followersCritics note novels
Wise Blood
(1952) and
The Violent Bear It Away
(1960) and short stories, collected in such works as
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
(1955), of American writer Mary Flannery O'Connor for their explorations of religious faith and a spare literary style.
The Georgia state college for women educated O’Connor, who then studied writing at the Iowa writers' workshop and wrote much of Wise Blood at the colony of artists at Yaddo in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on Andalusia, ancestral farm of her family outside Milledgeville, Georgia.
O’Connor wrote Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). When she died at the age of 39 years, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.
Survivors published her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969). Her Complete Stories , published posthumously in 1972, won the national book award for that year. Survivors published her letters in The Habit of Being (1979). In 1988, the Library of America published Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor, the first so honored postwar writer.
People in an online poll in 2009 voted her Complete Stories as the best book to win the national book award in the six-decade history of the contest.
The Georgia state college for women educated O’Connor, who then studied writing at the Iowa writers' workshop and wrote much of Wise Blood at the colony of artists at Yaddo in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on Andalusia, ancestral farm of her family outside Milledgeville, Georgia.
O’Connor wrote Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). When she died at the age of 39 years, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.
Survivors published her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969). Her Complete Stories , published posthumously in 1972, won the national book award for that year. Survivors published her letters in The Habit of Being (1979). In 1988, the Library of America published Collected Works of Flannery O'Connor, the first so honored postwar writer.
People in an online poll in 2009 voted her Complete Stories as the best book to win the national book award in the six-decade history of the contest.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
May 20, 2025
Quirky story of two people who think they've gotten the better of the deal. Poor Lucynells.
April 1, 2021
I gave this short story five stars simply because of the way it is written. Although I am not a big fan of the ending I can still see that this piece is well written and well thought out. The writer clearly took time in this piece and it shows. The atmosphere is warm yet still ominous like something is about to go wrong. It is wonderfully hard to figure out Mr. Shiftlet's motives and at any moment it seems as though he will transform into a monster with three heads and claws but he does not. Instead, he is a human evil and I think that is even scarier than a mythical monster. I think that is what gives life to this story.
October 15, 2020
The life you save may be your own. And then you have to live with it forever.
Read or reread the stories that are referenced in PJ Harvey’s album Is this Desire? after she posted a rare photo of herself on social media from back then reading O’Connor. Quick notes on my thoughts.
This is one of O’Connors best that I’ve read. The story is laden with religious symbolism and it’s not hard to decipher the messages, but one does not have to be religious/Christian to relate to the themes. O’Connors stories can still work even as one comes from a different perspective, background, time and place. Here, characters miss opportunity for grace. Or you could see this as having become selfish, prioritizing self interest over human kindness or connection, without which we would not have been what we are, as a species or individually. In the end, is choosing the self really the best way? How far can you go like that? What is the price you pay? In a short space, and mostly indirectly but nevertheless strongly, O’Connor brings up such questions to linger for a long while after.
(The song by Harvey is No Girl So Sweet)
Read or reread the stories that are referenced in PJ Harvey’s album Is this Desire? after she posted a rare photo of herself on social media from back then reading O’Connor. Quick notes on my thoughts.
This is one of O’Connors best that I’ve read. The story is laden with religious symbolism and it’s not hard to decipher the messages, but one does not have to be religious/Christian to relate to the themes. O’Connors stories can still work even as one comes from a different perspective, background, time and place. Here, characters miss opportunity for grace. Or you could see this as having become selfish, prioritizing self interest over human kindness or connection, without which we would not have been what we are, as a species or individually. In the end, is choosing the self really the best way? How far can you go like that? What is the price you pay? In a short space, and mostly indirectly but nevertheless strongly, O’Connor brings up such questions to linger for a long while after.
(The song by Harvey is No Girl So Sweet)
May 25, 2020
He was saving his spirit. He was a drifter and did not want to remain tied down in one place. He had tried to explain this to the mother but she hadn't paid attention. She could have saved her life and definitely her daughter's if she had not insisted that he marry her daughter. Very powerful writing.
Read
June 21, 2020There are several things about this story that I find fascinating. What I notice every time I read the story is that we can't be sure until the very end whether Tom Shiftlet will turn out to be a villain. There are plenty of indications that he's a con man who will take advantage of the old lady and of the daughter in order to get what he wants. But even when he has abandoned his brand-new bride in the Hot Spot diner, we hope he'll turn around and do the decent thing. Instead, it becomes clear that he is delusional about his own morality; he sees himself as "responsible" now that he owns a car, and he tries to give advice to a young male hitchhiker who reminds him of his own younger self--even as he hurries on toward Mobile in a car he essentially stole from his mother-in-law of a few hours earlier.
April 12, 2025
??????
Read
May 8, 2023“There's one of these doctors in Atlanta that's taken a knife and cut the human heart-the human heart," he repeated, leaning forward, "out of a man's chest and held it in his hand," and he held his hand out, palm up, as if it were slightly weighted with the human heart, "and studied it like it was a day-old chicken, and lady," he said, allowing a long significant pause in which his head slid forward and his clay-colored eyes brightened, "he don't know no more about it than you or me."
April 8, 2021
I'm confusion.
December 27, 2025
VERY well-done, I love going in with the perspective of the "antagonist". I wanted him to become good, and I think it was the point to be tricked into believing he would turn out good. Wonderful twists, I'll always love Flannery O'Connor.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 4, 2024
nice atmosphere, but the best thing about it is the title
August 18, 2024
My favorite O’Connor yet
Read
March 31, 2025The life you save may be your own; and maybe this life doesn't need you because who wants to live, let's just jump into ditches and die?
January 31, 2025
Spoiler Alert!
Probably my favorite short story so far by her. Irony abundant like a lot of her tragic stories, but you could see the ending coming the more you read it. She displayed beautifully a man without half his soul and limb. As he stated it, a man is two parts: a body, and a soul.
Since he is missing a limb, you could guess that he also meant half a heart. A lot of people rated this poorly because they said they were confused. Well, if you look deeper than surface level, maybe you’d find something….
A story about a deaf woman who is nice, because, well… to be nice… that’s all she has other than a pretty, innocent face. She gets taken advantage of, and so does the mother, but in all honesty, he sort of warned them in the beginning. That’s not to say they deserved what he did, but you can’t be surprised.
I was hoping some bad would come to him in the end, and unfortunately, not enough did. Sure he got insulted, but that’s what makes it gothic. Real world tragedy doesn’t always have karma like fairy tales. Sometimes the good get what they didn’t deserve, and the rotten get a golden goose. In this case it was 28’ or 29’ Ford with a fresh paint job and that could run like a stable full of horses.
This book packed a lot in a short amount of pages, and the “complete stories” by her gives you a wide variety of tales. Highly recommend working through them to get a wider perspective of a very interesting woman, who obviously experienced some rough patches in order to create these beautiful, dark fantasies.
The way the mother speaks about her child, and of life, is reminiscent of the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. I wonder if she based these women on her grandmother, or a lady she met one day and left a lasting impression. Or maybe this character was readily available by every southern grandma at that time.
Obviously this mother was older, at least 50 something, since her daughter was in her thirties, so that is why she fit so well in the mold of the older lady who looks down on modern society, even way back when.
I don’t normally leave a review for short stories like this, but this is a gem.
Probably my favorite short story so far by her. Irony abundant like a lot of her tragic stories, but you could see the ending coming the more you read it. She displayed beautifully a man without half his soul and limb. As he stated it, a man is two parts: a body, and a soul.
Since he is missing a limb, you could guess that he also meant half a heart. A lot of people rated this poorly because they said they were confused. Well, if you look deeper than surface level, maybe you’d find something….
A story about a deaf woman who is nice, because, well… to be nice… that’s all she has other than a pretty, innocent face. She gets taken advantage of, and so does the mother, but in all honesty, he sort of warned them in the beginning. That’s not to say they deserved what he did, but you can’t be surprised.
I was hoping some bad would come to him in the end, and unfortunately, not enough did. Sure he got insulted, but that’s what makes it gothic. Real world tragedy doesn’t always have karma like fairy tales. Sometimes the good get what they didn’t deserve, and the rotten get a golden goose. In this case it was 28’ or 29’ Ford with a fresh paint job and that could run like a stable full of horses.
This book packed a lot in a short amount of pages, and the “complete stories” by her gives you a wide variety of tales. Highly recommend working through them to get a wider perspective of a very interesting woman, who obviously experienced some rough patches in order to create these beautiful, dark fantasies.
The way the mother speaks about her child, and of life, is reminiscent of the grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. I wonder if she based these women on her grandmother, or a lady she met one day and left a lasting impression. Or maybe this character was readily available by every southern grandma at that time.
Obviously this mother was older, at least 50 something, since her daughter was in her thirties, so that is why she fit so well in the mold of the older lady who looks down on modern society, even way back when.
I don’t normally leave a review for short stories like this, but this is a gem.
August 3, 2025
The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Flannery O’Connor – I have read this marvelous short story eleven years ago, and this is what I thought https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/12/...
10 out of 10
The Life You Save May Be Your Own is part of the A Good Man Is Hard To find Collection https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... which starts with the story that names the compilation, in which we learn about the tragedy of a family, brought in large part by the…grandmother
This old lady is first confused over the address which she wants her son to drive to, this being no reason to accuse her of anything as dramatic as the execution of her own, but then, when they meet with The Misfit, a vile gangster, she tells the killer that she recognized him, to the exasperation of her own son, who saw the danger
This again can be explained by the age of the woman, her lack of understanding, perhaps a low EQ https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/08/... emotional intelligence is said (maybe even demonstrated) to be twice as important as IQ, and she may not have seen the consequences
Nevertheless, once it become clear that The Misfit and his hoodlums start murdering the son, then the wife and children, the grandmother appears to me to be concerned too much with her fate – ‘you wouldn’t shoot an old lady’, and then moaning along these lines, as if she is too concerned with her future…
Force Majeure https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/... comes to mind, wherein father, mother and two children are sitting on this terrace in the mountains, where they have come for a skiing vacation, when an avalanche seems to be so near, as to engulf them all, and the father…runs away
The Grandmother does not exactly do that, but she does bring the snow ball on the family – just a sick joke – with The Life You Save, we have a different territory, with another mature woman, Lucynell Crater, who is sitting with her daughter, also Lucynell, when a stranger comes walking on the road to their farm, Mr. Shiftlet is his name
He is missing an arm, looks like a tramp, and somehow, may be ‘a match’ for the daughter, her mother says that she (the young one) is fifteen, or sixteen, but she is close to thirty, and she cannot speak, until the man teaches her to say ‘bird’…he is invited to stay on, they do not have the money to pay him, but he could work
He will get free accommodation, if wants to help with the farm, and the stranger does that, he remarks on the car they have there, an old one, but he says ‘they used to know how to make them, now they have one man, for each screw, and you have to pay them all, that is why they are so expensive’ – words to that effect…
Some things never change, we hear this in the present, they do not make cars, phones, anything like in the good old days…I wonder how The Life You Save May Be Your Own connects with the important theme of religion, and the previous story in the collection – The River, wherein we have this small boy and his dramatic end
He is taken to see this healer- preacher to The River, which we know is the place for baptism, that can take place in the church, but also wherever there is a body of water – indeed, some denominations would prefer the outdoors to the classic means which they reject…there is a variety of offers now, as we can read…
In The Economist, there is a wonderful article on God TM, where we see that the religious outfits have made some 374 billion dollars, more than the revenues of Microsoft and Google combined (one of the two major technology players) they do not pay taxes, and from an economist’s perspective, they work as platforms
When Martin Luther came along, a monopoly was broken, customer choice was increased, and prices for services dropped, with the elimination of the indulgences, the pardons that the pope, the Catholic Church had started to offer for money, you could sin, and then offer down payment to go to heaven, putting it bluntly…
Yes, I may see some similarity, at least in the way I look at this and The River, for in the latter, the poor boy is not saved, he is drowned in the water, and here, we think that maybe the tramp and the girl who is challenged have found each other, God maybe worked in his mysterious ways and there is bliss for them too
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth’, or was it the kingdom of heaven, however, our most brilliant mind, Andrei Plesu, has a different take on these meek, it does not refer to those who literally have little, it is more complex than that https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
The mother wants the stranger to marry her daughter (without hindsight, I would wonder why) only Shiflet is…shifty, perhaps his name is not a ‘coincident’, after all, we find in According To Mark by Penelope Lively that the author is God, he or she decides who lives, what happens and everything else in his domain
Eventually, after saying he needs money to marry, for he wants to take his wife (she could be a duchess) to a hotel, for a meal, and he has nothing, so they negotiate, Mrs. Crater offers fifteen dollars – maybe a few thousand in adjusted terms – and then they settle for $ 17.5 and at the restaurant, the groom abandons the bride, takes the car and then there is another unexpected clash with a boy that is taken for a ride…
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
10 out of 10
The Life You Save May Be Your Own is part of the A Good Man Is Hard To find Collection https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... which starts with the story that names the compilation, in which we learn about the tragedy of a family, brought in large part by the…grandmother
This old lady is first confused over the address which she wants her son to drive to, this being no reason to accuse her of anything as dramatic as the execution of her own, but then, when they meet with The Misfit, a vile gangster, she tells the killer that she recognized him, to the exasperation of her own son, who saw the danger
This again can be explained by the age of the woman, her lack of understanding, perhaps a low EQ https://realini.blogspot.com/2013/08/... emotional intelligence is said (maybe even demonstrated) to be twice as important as IQ, and she may not have seen the consequences
Nevertheless, once it become clear that The Misfit and his hoodlums start murdering the son, then the wife and children, the grandmother appears to me to be concerned too much with her fate – ‘you wouldn’t shoot an old lady’, and then moaning along these lines, as if she is too concerned with her future…
Force Majeure https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/... comes to mind, wherein father, mother and two children are sitting on this terrace in the mountains, where they have come for a skiing vacation, when an avalanche seems to be so near, as to engulf them all, and the father…runs away
The Grandmother does not exactly do that, but she does bring the snow ball on the family – just a sick joke – with The Life You Save, we have a different territory, with another mature woman, Lucynell Crater, who is sitting with her daughter, also Lucynell, when a stranger comes walking on the road to their farm, Mr. Shiftlet is his name
He is missing an arm, looks like a tramp, and somehow, may be ‘a match’ for the daughter, her mother says that she (the young one) is fifteen, or sixteen, but she is close to thirty, and she cannot speak, until the man teaches her to say ‘bird’…he is invited to stay on, they do not have the money to pay him, but he could work
He will get free accommodation, if wants to help with the farm, and the stranger does that, he remarks on the car they have there, an old one, but he says ‘they used to know how to make them, now they have one man, for each screw, and you have to pay them all, that is why they are so expensive’ – words to that effect…
Some things never change, we hear this in the present, they do not make cars, phones, anything like in the good old days…I wonder how The Life You Save May Be Your Own connects with the important theme of religion, and the previous story in the collection – The River, wherein we have this small boy and his dramatic end
He is taken to see this healer- preacher to The River, which we know is the place for baptism, that can take place in the church, but also wherever there is a body of water – indeed, some denominations would prefer the outdoors to the classic means which they reject…there is a variety of offers now, as we can read…
In The Economist, there is a wonderful article on God TM, where we see that the religious outfits have made some 374 billion dollars, more than the revenues of Microsoft and Google combined (one of the two major technology players) they do not pay taxes, and from an economist’s perspective, they work as platforms
When Martin Luther came along, a monopoly was broken, customer choice was increased, and prices for services dropped, with the elimination of the indulgences, the pardons that the pope, the Catholic Church had started to offer for money, you could sin, and then offer down payment to go to heaven, putting it bluntly…
Yes, I may see some similarity, at least in the way I look at this and The River, for in the latter, the poor boy is not saved, he is drowned in the water, and here, we think that maybe the tramp and the girl who is challenged have found each other, God maybe worked in his mysterious ways and there is bliss for them too
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth’, or was it the kingdom of heaven, however, our most brilliant mind, Andrei Plesu, has a different take on these meek, it does not refer to those who literally have little, it is more complex than that https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...
The mother wants the stranger to marry her daughter (without hindsight, I would wonder why) only Shiflet is…shifty, perhaps his name is not a ‘coincident’, after all, we find in According To Mark by Penelope Lively that the author is God, he or she decides who lives, what happens and everything else in his domain
Eventually, after saying he needs money to marry, for he wants to take his wife (she could be a duchess) to a hotel, for a meal, and he has nothing, so they negotiate, Mrs. Crater offers fifteen dollars – maybe a few thousand in adjusted terms – and then they settle for $ 17.5 and at the restaurant, the groom abandons the bride, takes the car and then there is another unexpected clash with a boy that is taken for a ride…
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
September 8, 2025
Lady, please!
In a rundown farm in the middle of nowhere, and old aging woman, Mrs. Crater, and her daughter, Lucynell, spend their day sitting in their yard, when an unexpected visitor suddenly arrives, a vagrant from distant lands, one Mr. Tom Shiftler, eager to help in exchange for accommodation.
WTF was this? I'm not sure what to think, and I may be totally wrong here, but I'm starting to get the feeling that Flannery O'Connor is like the Christian version of Shirley Jackson.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1953] [13p] [Fiction] [0.5] [HIGHLY Not Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
★★☆☆☆ A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories [2.5] <--
-----------------------------------------------
Señora, ¡por favor!
En una granja en ruinas en medio de la nada, una vieja anciana, la Sra. Crater, y su hija, Lucynell, pasan el día sentadas en su jardín, cuando de repente llega un inesperado visitante, un vagabundo de tierras lejanas, un tal Sr. Tom Shiftler, ansioso por ayudar a cambio de alojamiento.
¿Qué demonios fue esto? No estoy seguro de qué pensar, y puede que esté totalmente equivocado, pero empiezo a tener la sensación de que Flannery O'Connor es como la versión cristiana de Shirley Jackson.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1953] [13p] [Ficción] [0.5] [ALTAMENTE No Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
In a rundown farm in the middle of nowhere, and old aging woman, Mrs. Crater, and her daughter, Lucynell, spend their day sitting in their yard, when an unexpected visitor suddenly arrives, a vagrant from distant lands, one Mr. Tom Shiftler, eager to help in exchange for accommodation.
WTF was this? I'm not sure what to think, and I may be totally wrong here, but I'm starting to get the feeling that Flannery O'Connor is like the Christian version of Shirley Jackson.
-----------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTE :
[1953] [13p] [Fiction] [0.5] [HIGHLY Not Recommendable]
-----------------------------------------------
★★☆☆☆ A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories [2.5] <--
-----------------------------------------------
Señora, ¡por favor!
En una granja en ruinas en medio de la nada, una vieja anciana, la Sra. Crater, y su hija, Lucynell, pasan el día sentadas en su jardín, cuando de repente llega un inesperado visitante, un vagabundo de tierras lejanas, un tal Sr. Tom Shiftler, ansioso por ayudar a cambio de alojamiento.
¿Qué demonios fue esto? No estoy seguro de qué pensar, y puede que esté totalmente equivocado, pero empiezo a tener la sensación de que Flannery O'Connor es como la versión cristiana de Shirley Jackson.
-----------------------------------------------
NOTA PERSONAL :
[1953] [13p] [Ficción] [0.5] [ALTAMENTE No Recomendable]
-----------------------------------------------
May 1, 2023
This actually isn't one of my favorite Flannery O'Connor stories, but it's one of her very popular ones. Seems to make it into a number of anthologies as representative of her work. Good Country People might be my favorite, if I had to pick one.
But I do love her writing style and weirdo characters... and all things southern for some good storytelling entertainment. What I like best about this story is the ending.
Flannery was deeply religious. One belief that made up the design of her short stories is that the characters she dealt with were (unknowingly) on some kind of road to find their way back to God. However, some folk are so stubborn screwed up that it takes something truly horrible and even violent to get them back on the path to grace. Violence and other hideous happenings are a key element surrounding her lost and despicable souls. Spoilers ahead.
This story revolves around a one-armed lying sack of shit predator who's willing to impersonate a decent human being so he can basically do his thieving. And that's what this soulless fucker does. It's how he finds his self-worth... it's how he fills that gaping black hole where a soul oughta be...by getting close to those who have something he can mimic or steal that will make him feel important. He's a complete loser and a fraud who believes his own lies.
So lying sack of shit drifts into the life of some ignorant old lady and her disabled daughter so he can steal their car and money. The height of indecency... scamming on old people and the disabled. He dedicates his whole life to the scam because he's a self-absorbed parasite wired to do harm.
He appears to make off with the goods. Ignorant grandma gets a hard lesson of her own, Flannery O'Connor style. Because no sinner escapes an ass-whoopin' in Flannery's stories.
Now Flannery's endings are typically designed to be open-ended... shocking, obscure. Debatable. Not always fully understood. Our one-armed sack of shit picks up a very young boy hitcher who instantly calls him on his bullshit and would rather jump out the damn MOVING CAR than spend another second listening to a reeking sack of shit. Hilarious!!
I'm not particularly religious. But I find Flannery's brand of dark religious humor and kooky characters one of a kind. Back to the ending. It amuses me that no matter what kind of slippery sack of shit scammer you are... your evil bullshit will always be glaringly transparent to someone. So our sack of shit drives off into the horizon unbalanced by boy hitcher... where we see there is a wicked storm a-brewin'.... And that is my favorite part of the story. Because I like to believe that the sack of shit scammers of the world who appear to elude justice get a random bitchslap and pissed on by nature outta nowhere... and there is no escaping.
Watching Dogma (1999) brought me back to Flannery O'Connor this year.
Fun nostalgic read.
But I do love her writing style and weirdo characters... and all things southern for some good storytelling entertainment. What I like best about this story is the ending.
Flannery was deeply religious. One belief that made up the design of her short stories is that the characters she dealt with were (unknowingly) on some kind of road to find their way back to God. However, some folk are so stubborn screwed up that it takes something truly horrible and even violent to get them back on the path to grace. Violence and other hideous happenings are a key element surrounding her lost and despicable souls. Spoilers ahead.
This story revolves around a one-armed lying sack of shit predator who's willing to impersonate a decent human being so he can basically do his thieving. And that's what this soulless fucker does. It's how he finds his self-worth... it's how he fills that gaping black hole where a soul oughta be...by getting close to those who have something he can mimic or steal that will make him feel important. He's a complete loser and a fraud who believes his own lies.
So lying sack of shit drifts into the life of some ignorant old lady and her disabled daughter so he can steal their car and money. The height of indecency... scamming on old people and the disabled. He dedicates his whole life to the scam because he's a self-absorbed parasite wired to do harm.
He appears to make off with the goods. Ignorant grandma gets a hard lesson of her own, Flannery O'Connor style. Because no sinner escapes an ass-whoopin' in Flannery's stories.
Now Flannery's endings are typically designed to be open-ended... shocking, obscure. Debatable. Not always fully understood. Our one-armed sack of shit picks up a very young boy hitcher who instantly calls him on his bullshit and would rather jump out the damn MOVING CAR than spend another second listening to a reeking sack of shit. Hilarious!!
I'm not particularly religious. But I find Flannery's brand of dark religious humor and kooky characters one of a kind. Back to the ending. It amuses me that no matter what kind of slippery sack of shit scammer you are... your evil bullshit will always be glaringly transparent to someone. So our sack of shit drives off into the horizon unbalanced by boy hitcher... where we see there is a wicked storm a-brewin'.... And that is my favorite part of the story. Because I like to believe that the sack of shit scammers of the world who appear to elude justice get a random bitchslap and pissed on by nature outta nowhere... and there is no escaping.
Watching Dogma (1999) brought me back to Flannery O'Connor this year.
Fun nostalgic read.
December 29, 2024
This story was the second story I read by Flannery O'Connor, and I read it in September for a 12th-grade English class.
Keep in mind that I read this months ago, so I don't remember the specifics of this story very well.
Upon reading "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," Flannery O'Connor immediately became my favorite short fiction writer, and one of my favorite writers of all time. This story, along with "Good Country People," motivated me to order a collection of O'Connor stories, which I am yet to read.
"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" transports you immediately to a vivid world O'Connor constructs effortlessly. She manages to be concise yet provide just the right amount of detail. This story sucks you in and keeps you engaged until the very last word. It is a cynical story, and despite the plot seeming sad on the surface, I found it humorous and philosophical rather than dark and melancholy. The characters O'Connor creates feel as real as the paper her words are printed on, and the Southern setting has the same vivid, life-like quality.
After reading an essay by O'Connor in my 12th grade class, I made a very corny comment that reading her thoughts on writing was "a glimpse into the mind of a master." As corny and cringe that comment was, I really feel that way when I read O'Connor's writing. She was just so good at building worlds and characters and intriguing plots, that reading her writing feels like looking at a DaVinci painting. I am always in awe when I read O'Connor.
Keep in mind that I read this months ago, so I don't remember the specifics of this story very well.
Upon reading "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," Flannery O'Connor immediately became my favorite short fiction writer, and one of my favorite writers of all time. This story, along with "Good Country People," motivated me to order a collection of O'Connor stories, which I am yet to read.
"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" transports you immediately to a vivid world O'Connor constructs effortlessly. She manages to be concise yet provide just the right amount of detail. This story sucks you in and keeps you engaged until the very last word. It is a cynical story, and despite the plot seeming sad on the surface, I found it humorous and philosophical rather than dark and melancholy. The characters O'Connor creates feel as real as the paper her words are printed on, and the Southern setting has the same vivid, life-like quality.
After reading an essay by O'Connor in my 12th grade class, I made a very corny comment that reading her thoughts on writing was "a glimpse into the mind of a master." As corny and cringe that comment was, I really feel that way when I read O'Connor's writing. She was just so good at building worlds and characters and intriguing plots, that reading her writing feels like looking at a DaVinci painting. I am always in awe when I read O'Connor.
September 11, 2024
Thank you Mr. Guerra for showing this to the class! I'll always remember this since he mentioned that he believed it was a perfectly written piece of literature. We had to annotate like a page and a half of it and I was kind of lost until we did the group discussion about it. I took some time to read it now and I for sure think the way the author somehow makes the location feel so lonely and sad, but also so warm and welcoming was really interesting. I just imagine myself with them talking to each other on the porch, while I rock on the rocking chair. Feels like such a simple life, until Mr. Shiftlet leaves and now everything seems so sad and lonely. I can't imagine what the Old Woman felt after the end of this story.......
December 30, 2021
Mother and Lucynell were sitting on the front porch one afternoon when a one-armed carpenter named Shiftlet appeared at the front gate. He had no car so he was a foot. Chit chat began, it led to negotiations, which were settled with Mr Shiftlet agreeing to work for room and board. The subjects of future and marriage arose. Lucynell was so innocent that her mother passed her off as fifteen or sixteen although she was actually closer to 30 … negotiations started anew and …
Flanker O’Connor is a terrific writer and masterful storyteller and, as such, is essential
Flanker O’Connor is a terrific writer and masterful storyteller and, as such, is essential
September 10, 2023
Underwhelmed by this one. It's a bummer, too, because I love everything else that I've read of Flannery. I suppose I was expecting some sort of satisfying plot twist or turning point, and it never happened. It was very atmospheric, though.
I feel like there's something I'm missing as far as theme and literary craft. I'll read it one last time before English on Tuesday, and then I'm sure that the class discussion will unlock it for me. I think this is one of those cases where it's the reader's fault, not the author's.
I feel like there's something I'm missing as far as theme and literary craft. I'll read it one last time before English on Tuesday, and then I'm sure that the class discussion will unlock it for me. I think this is one of those cases where it's the reader's fault, not the author's.
October 6, 2022
This was a more subtly creepy story which I wasn't really in the mood for. I was honestly expecting some huge plot twist or something at least mildly horrific after all the research I had to do on southern gothic literature to preface this reading. I didn't get that however and instead got a vaguely symbolic religious story that was very underwhelming.
February 7, 2024
Unfortunately I am not wise to the angles. But it's about a drifter who comes to exploit and mother and daughter, and a mother who seeks to exploit a drifter. Nobody really gets what they want, after all.
Also at the end, a man who has done a bad deed prays "wash the slime from this earth!" as a thunderstorm chases him into the next town.
Also at the end, a man who has done a bad deed prays "wash the slime from this earth!" as a thunderstorm chases him into the next town.
August 18, 2024
Summary: A wanderer named Tom T. Shiftlet stops at Mrs. Crater’s farm, where he sees a car that he would like to have. He offers to do work around the farm in exchange for a place to stay, and Mrs. Crater, hoping to rope Mr. Shiftlet into marrying her daughter, who is deaf and mute, agrees to this deal.
September 8, 2025
Used this short story to discuss the elements of story in our first meeting of Techniques of Fiction. We as a class really emphasized and have referenced again the ending to this piece - how Shiftlet cries out for the Lord to purify the slime from the earth when he is in fact slime himself, given everything he does.
(Read for Techniques of Fiction)
(Read for Techniques of Fiction)
October 17, 2024
The style of writing is superb, but the story itself felt like I was being taken on an interesting road trip somewhere and half way to the destination I was ejected from the car by the curbside: much like the the girl or the hitchhiker in the story itself.
October 4, 2025
A con man and a user in a chess match. Is Shiftlet a villain or merely super annoying in the way he dances around the topic, constantly talking, using meaningless ideas, but never revealing anything? The daughter is clearly the pawn in this game. Will she survive it?
December 29, 2025
A very qwirky short story about a grifter and an old lady who both think they are getting a better deal in life. He gets a car and she gets her daughter married off. But poor Lucynell gets left behind. Kind of an abrupt and strange ending to an otherwise well-written piece.
November 17, 2019
I don't understand what it is I just read, what was the point? Who's life was saved? I hope book club can explain this one to me.
May 16, 2020
What?
WHAT?
What was that? What's the point? Where is the meaning? It doesn't make any sense!
WHAT?
What was that? What's the point? Where is the meaning? It doesn't make any sense!
April 11, 2021
this short story contains chewing of unpeeled gum
Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews