Irony Of The Life You Save May Be Your Own By Flannery O Connor

From a bible-selling prosthesis thief. To a corpse in full confederate wear waiting in line at a Coca-Cola machine. Flannery O’Connor’s fiction is often shocking but memorable. In that her violent comedy creates a humor from the fusion of opposite realities. She creates characters that seem to be simple, but makes them have an ironic twist. O’Connor gives her fiction a life through the color symbolism she writes in. Seeing this, O’Connor’s characterization with color symbolism, irony, and humor brings the character’s to life. Color symbolism is a stylistic technique that Flannery O’Connor uses to provide insight and descriptions of the characters. In “The Life you Save May Be Your Own” Lucynell Crater’s clothing is portrayed to show her innocence.

Flannery O’Connor specifically uses verbal and situational irony the most to show the implications. Throughout “ The Life You Save May Be Your Own” Mr. Shiftlet complains that, “The world is almost rotten(2).”, and that he wants to get rid of what is rotten. Yet it is ironic that the rottenness in the world is Mr. Shiftlet. So when Mr.Shiftlet says “Break forth and wash the slime from this earth! (8).” The slime is Mr. Shiftlet, so it is ironic that the slime is himself, and the actions that he made are exactly what makes him the slime he wants to be washed away. Additionally, in “Good Country People” Hulga thinks she is seducing Manley Pointer throughout the entire story because, “She had seduced him without even making up her mind to try (12).” When ironically it is Pointer who easily seduces Hulga. O’Connor writes many of her characters to have high self images of themselves like Hulga and Sally Poker Sash. Sally in “The Encounter with the Enemy” is only concerned with her self image, since she wants her 104 year old Grandfather to be at her graduation.She goes on to say that it is a dream for her to get on the stage and see her grandfather watching her. However ironically Sally says, “She wanted the General at her graduation because she wanted to show what she stood for, or, as she said, “what all was behind her,” and was not behind them (1).” Sally does not seem to really care about her

However In “ A Late Encounter with the Enemy”, General Sash talks about his civil war times, and that he took pictures with all pretty women. So when General Sash says “How I keep so young,” he screeched, “I kiss all the pretty guls! (5)” It is humorous to think that a 92 year old is yelling out loud to an auditorium full of people about kissing pretty girls. Throughout “ The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, Mr. Shiftlet cleans up the old woman’s and daughter’s house, and then marries Lucynell to get a car. Then leaves Lucynell at a diner where Mr. Shiftlet goes on to say, “ He felt too that a man with a car had a responsibility to others and he kept his eye out for a hitch-hiker (7).” Knowing that Mr. Shiftlet did all these things to get a car, and then abandon Lucynell in a diner to say he is obligated to help hitchhikers, because of a car is humorous. Additionally in “Good Country People”, Manley Pointer brings Hulga on a date and shows her a bible and, “It was hollow and contained a pocket flask of whiskey, a pack of cards, and a small blue box with printing on it (13).” Everything that is in the hollow bible is to be sexually intended, and considering this is coming from a bible sales man it is humorous. Nonetheless, the use of humor from O’Connor is not always comic laughter, but uncomfortable disturbing laughter. This