The Life Save Is Your Own Short Story

In the short stories of "The Life You Save is Your Own" and "The Magic Barrel", both of the protagonists share similar and differing characteristics. Both of the protagonists are not reliable narrators, and lie to themselves and others. Mr. Shiftlet, the protagonist of "The Life Save is Your Own", is a manipulative character, When Shilftlet first encountered Lucynell and his mother his only objective was the car. O'Connor, that author, uses missing body parts in her writing to depict that the character is missing a part of themselves. In this case Shiftlet is missing an arm. Shiftlet is a repairman and sees the car he is repairing as a soul. Shiftlet thinks that he has to help and fix other people, which is irony because he is actually the one who needs fixing. Shiftlet is also a very lonely person because he isolates himself from people and does not make commitments. For example, he thinks he finished "helping"
In this case he tries to fill up his emptiness by calling a matchmaker. Finkle is very picky in finding a girl that is suitable to him. Finally, he picks a woman named Lily. During the time he spent with Lily it is revealed that although he is a Rabbi, he only came to God because he did not love him, and starts asking himself that "he did not love God so well as he might, because he had not loved man" (Malamud, 1181). In a strange twist, he comes to love the matchmaker's daughter who was disowned because of prostitution. He believes that she can bring him salvation. In the final scene of the story when he goes to see her. He imagines her wearing a white dress and red shoes; however in a troubled moment he sees that she is actually wearing a red dress and white shoes. He keeps imagining her as an innocent woman and someone who can save her, while that is not the case, because her actually wearing a red dress symbolizes a devil, that he ignores by only seeing the white