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The Life You Save May Be Your Own Literary Analysis

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"Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not," said Flannery O 'Conner, who is the author of " The Life You Save May be Your Own" (BrainyQuote). Flannery O 'Connor was a Roman Catholic and she often reflect her faith in her writings. She is one of the most famous American Literature writer who writes in the style of Southern Gothic (Holt 940). And this short stories of hers has gothic humor in it because it contains both horror and romance. In "The Life You Save May be Your Own", O 'Connor used symbolism and imagery to bring out her theme, which is moral corruption and the search of the meaning of life. Symbolism is used throughout the story to help O 'Connor clarify her meaning of a few plots and intents. The young …show more content…

Not only because she is deaf and muted, but also she lacks attention to her surroundings. "The daughter could not see far in front of her and continued to play with her fingers" (Holt 940) this sentence describes Lucynell as a child-like person who does not really care about things around her. Moreover, Lucynell has an appearance of purity, "She had long pink-gold hair and eyes blue as a peacock 's neck"(Holt 941), her pinkish gold hair makes her stand out from other people, shining like an little angel. Furthermore, the color of her eyes, blue as a neck of peacock, is another example of symbolism. Peacock is a symbol of immortality in Christianity, because it sheds its old feathers and grow newer, brighter ones each year. It also symbolizes eternal life and the "eyes " on its feathers link to the seeing eyes of God (Wilson). Last but not least, there was a boy who hitched a ride on Shiftlet 's car, which was a honeymoon gift from Mrs. Crater, and then jumped out of the …show more content…

Almost every color in this story has its function, whether to provide the readers an picture while reading the story or to link the stereotype of the colors to the personalities of the characters, O 'Connor successfully developed a colorful scene throughout this story. At the beginning of the story, Shiftlet walked towards Mrs. Crater 's house, he was wearing some dark colored clothes. "He had on a black town suit and a brown felt hat that was turned up in the front"(Holt 940), black indicates the impression of the unknown mystery and the hidden information. "He seemed to be a young man but he had a look of composed dissatisfaction as if he understood life thoroughly"(Holt 941), Shiftlet has gone through a war, which cost him his left arm. Regardless of the sarcastic complaints from strangers or those disgusted looks made by others, Shiftlet 's war experience taught him the way to protect himself from the society. Black, the opposite of light, relates to evilness. Shiftlet 's personality changed throughout the story. He started with a nice and polite guy who ended up as a greedy loser. The black clothes and his hair color foreshadows his miserable ending and outcome. While O 'Connor described only the hat of Mrs. Crater, she focused on the outfits of Lucynell in particular. The dress she wore at the beginning of the story and her eyes are blue.

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