Preview

Summary Of The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
439 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary Of The Life You Save May Be Your Own
While reading “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” I couldn't decide who was worse between Mr. Shiflet and Mrs. Crater. When I finished reading I decided Mr. Shiflet was worse because of how manipulative he was.

Mr. Shiflet was able to manipulate how and what people thought and what people talked about with him. When Mrs. Crater would ask Mr. Shiflet a question about why he is at her house he would respond with a different question or tell her a story about the doctor in Atlanta that cut a human heart out of someone’s body, held it in his hand, and studied it like a day old chicken. This showed that he was able to change the subject so he could talk about what he wanted to talk about.

Some people might say that Mrs. Crater is worse than

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Next, the Misfit comes to a strange realization: he wishes he could have been there, because if he had he “wouldn’t be like [he is] now” (14). It is as if the Misfit is becoming aware of the man he could have been as he speaks, and more importantly, he appears to desire the different life. The realization hits the reader awkwardly, coming across as out of place and unexpected. This sudden emotional response mimics that of the grandmother, who is able to sense the Misfit’s sudden vulnerability and use it to her advantage. At this moment, the grandmother does something unprecedented: she reaches out to the killer and calls him “one of my babies . . . one of my own children”…

    • 2190 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author uses different literary devices, including point of view and diction to show a character’s struggle in choice between regret and heroism. His use of first person point of view is used to convey regret, while his use of diction is used to show heroism.…

    • 391 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is perceived throughout literature that characters within a novel are solely prompted by personal interests. Yet, we learn that they are sometimes driven throughout the work ascertaining a purpose larger than themselves. Whether it is an author’s use of literary elements (such as dialogue, characterization, or conflict) or even in their craft alone, it is inevitable in the two classic works: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Crucible by Arthur Miller. In The Grapes of Wrath, we discover an unavoidable change in the character Rose of Sharon. When we are first introduced to Rose of Sharon, she is exceedingly dependent on her husband and primarily concerned about the well-being of her child. Yet as the novel progresses, Steinbeck innovates Rose of Sharon into a seemingly new character. This is also present with The Crucible’s John Proctor. He begins absent-minded, careless, and only uneasy about keeping his affairs with Abigail Williams silent. However, Arthur Miller worked to evolve Proctor’s character with his use of conflict, irony, and a creative mind-set. Both characters, Rose of Sharon and John Proctor, progress into nearly entirely new people all from the endeavor of the authors. The focus though, is how the authors are able to do it.…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    On the one hand, O'Conner wants us and the grandmother to "see" The Misfit for who he really is; a sad, weak person who is in pain, so she says of him at the end of the story, "Without his glasses, The Misfit's eyes were red rimmed and pale and defenseless-looking; on the other hand, O'Connor also wants us and The Misfits to "see" the grandmother for who she really is; she has become the child she once was because she has connected with her real self and feelings; she knows at last the truth she has been avoiding her whole life and dies a happy woman; because, she says of the grandmother at the end of the story "… the grandmother…half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child's and her face smiling up at the cloudless…

    • 3146 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In addition it demonstrates the lack of compassion and fatherly representation he was given as a younger child. For most of his life he had been struggling with adapting to the values of the everyday society, and inevitably ends up killing more people as a way to survive the torment of “punishment”. His previous life, in the penitentiary, didn’t serve as a force of justice, but rather it provided a way for Misfit to undergo a disturbing transformation into a spiteful murder. In addition, Misfit’s dialect demonstrates how the hateful and misjudgment of our society can negatively affect the way a person carries on with their…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The setting is in the 1920’s at a train station. The man, the American, and the young girl, Jig, have a discussion about a sore topic. Both talk, but neither listens or understands the other’s point of view. Like any eavesdropper, tuning in to another’s conversation, the reader is left to discern the topic merely by listening. The American man will say anything to convince his girlfriend to have the operation. He tells her he loves her and that everything between them will go back to the way it used to be.”That’s the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (page 2). Revealing the selfishness of the American, and revealing Jig’s uncertainty. Her statements referring to the hills looking…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    John C Calhoun's Success

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Life is not only stranger than fiction, but frequently also more tragic than any tragedy ever conceived by the most fervid imagination. Often in these tragedies of life there is not one drop of blood to make us shudder, nor a single event to compel the tears into the eye. A man endowed with an intellect far above the average, impelled by a high-soaring ambition, untainted by any petty or ignoble passion, and guided by a character of sterling firmness and more than common purity, yet, with fatal illusion, devoting all…

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    For instance during this conversation she exclaims, "Jesus!" the old lady cried. "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. I'll give you all the money I've got!" (O’Connor 715). The reader begins to feel as though this is just simply a poor old woman on the verge of a breakdown. Finally the use of actions to determine the Misfit’s characterization is very different from the rest of the characters. Stephen Bandy in his article "`One of My Babies': The Misfit and the Grandmother" states that “Although the Misfit is not physically present until the final pages, his influence hangs over the story almost from the beginning” (Bandy 107). The reader knows the misfit is not a “good man” by what the grandmother reads from the newspaper in the beginning of the story and also what is discussed throughout. This is also supported by the action of the Misfit having the whole family killed after the accident happened. However, at the end of the story we get a glimpse the opposite through the misfit’s actions. Margaret Earley Whitt, in her book Understanding Flannery O’Connor describes the Misfit’s…

    • 1982 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    His actions demonstrate his continual persistence in acting contrary to what is moral. His killing of the grandmother is indeed grave matter that he deliberately consents to. He fully knows what he is doing when he kills the grandmother; his past actions and words demonstrate that he knows his conscience has been malformed. His obstinate refusal to seek the truth and persist in error fulfill the third condition needed for his sin to be mortal. The Misfit must serve reminder that one’s past does not lessen one’s culpability for one’s…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The grandmother dramatically tried to get their attention to make them stop to help. The grandmother saw the man and had a feeling she knew the man that came to help. The grandmother, then put the pieces together and realized that the man was the Misfit. The grandmother mentioned to the Misfit if he would actually plan on hurting a lady. Rather than thinking of her family, the grandmother fights to try and save her own life. The grandmother was was confronting to the Misfit that he was a good man and does not want to harm a lady. The grandmother also began to appeal the characteristics of a Christian to the Misfit. By trying to reach out and reasoning with the Misfit it causes the Misfit to take drastic measures. The Misfit gathered each family member one by one leading them into the woods which resulted in the death of each family…

    • 544 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As soon as she reveals the unknown man’s true identity, she does not stop once to think about what he could do to her family. Instead, she pleads him to spare her life only. She goes on and on about the Misfit being a good man and that this means he could not possibly be able to hurt a good woman like her. As she tries to convince him to let her live, the Misfit’s companions, kill her family members one by one. She is able to see and hear when her son is taken away, and she does not beg the Misfit to spare her child’s life. Her moment of realization is described as follows, “You’re The Misfit...I recognized you at once! You wouldn't shoot a lady, would you? the grandmother said and removed a clean handkerchief from her cuff and began to slap at her eyes with it.” (O’Connor, 946-947). The grandmother even in a situation that involved harm to her own child, refuses to acknowledge anyone but herself. Her selfish thoughts and actions, prove to the reader that the “grandmother” is in reality a self-centered…

    • 891 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Survival That’s Worth the Cost In life people make hard choices -- difficult choices -- but sometimes to survive people don’t have a choice at all.…

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    These two characters are much like us in society today. We are all lost in the stigma society places upon us to look and act like someone else. Longing to be free of the constraints society has placed upon us of being shackled down by our possessions and obsessions. We have accepted these pressures placed upon us which society uses to define us as a person and how we live today. We are pawns of what society dictates, which creates the social monster within all of us.…

    • 656 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    But, their choice on whether or not to have an abortion does not make them bad people. Just like the grandma’s choice to let her family go to Florida with a misfit on the loose does not make her a bad person in Flannery O’Conner’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, but it is how she carries herself is what makes her a bad person. She sees herself as a classy, uppity woman yet in contrast, she is malice. When confronted by the misfit, she tries to spare her life, “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?”(O’Conner 85), disregarding the rest of the…

    • 1035 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Always A Reason Logos

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages

    He recalls stories from his own life to show how they caused disruption in his life. Mr. Roth has the authority and trust of a writer due to the years he worked at a very creditable ivy league school. The writer has a clear sense of ethos as he uses a personal experience from always being late to work and blaming it on the traffic. He knew that everyone else had to do the same thing and knew that the traffic would be a problem. “…, after a frantic hour of aggressive and dangerous driving, I would arrive with an apology…”…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays