The Life You Save May Be Your Own: Do the ends justify the means?
After reading and commenting extensively on peer blog entries concerning Flannery O'Connor's short story, I must admit that I have had some new insights regarding Mr. Shiftlet's character (Onilee's questions about the story, in particular, sparked my inquiry).
Rereading some of the key sections in the story, such as the scene at The Hot Spot and the hitch-hiker scene, made me consider the possibility that Mr. Shiftlet was actually trying to do good in the world by abandoning his wife and making off with the car.
As he mentions, "a man with a car had a responsibility to others," and perhaps he only wanted the car so that he could be more of a help to others, like hitch-hikers. Likewise, perhaps he left his wife behind at the diner because he felt the young man at the counter would take care of her better than her mother or he, himself, could (after all, since Lucynell can only say the word "bird," there's probably no real way for her to get help in returning to her mother). Finally, in the concluding paragraphs, I noticed that he is described to be "racing" the rain to the town of Mobile after his plea to God, so perhaps he is racing it there in order to save the very people he has just asked God to condemn.
An interesting perspective, to say the least, but I still get a bad vibe from Mr. Shiftlet's character. Regardless of his intentions, I don't think the ends justify the means, in this case. He may have felt he was doing his wife a favor by leaving her with the young man, but he certainly couldn't be sure that the guy wouldn't somehow take advantage of her or just desert her the same way. Nor could he be sure that the boy he picks up will be okay, wandering around on his own far from home, and yet instead of trying to stop him he just lets him go, lets him run from his problems.
Comments
I think O'Conner wrote deliberately - and that your feeling of 'bad vibes' is intentional. There is little explicit evidence in the text to commend him to the reader. (Only perhaps his good work as a carpenter)My response to this character is that we have a self-centered manipulator on the loose who will hurt when necessary in order to accomplish his own personal gratification.
Posted by: coram | April 29, 2006 6:32 PM