The short fiction story of “ The Life You Save May Be Your Own ” written by
Flannery O’Connor uses many literary devices. O'Connor expresses real life tragedies throughout this story using imagery, underlying bibliomancy, and symbolism. Usage of bright vivid colors provides an insight on O’Conner double meanings. The weather plays a role in which it shows the characters mood and crucial moments. The references of religious symbols assists the characters.
The color scheme used through the story are mostly dark colors. When Mr. Shiftlet arrived “ He had a black town suit and a brown felt hat”. Black is known for death, evil, and mystery. While the description of Mrs. Crater emphasized on the grey hat, grey is known for loss and depression. As
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Throughout the story you see the weather become a guide to the characters emotions and significance moments. During an early afternoon with “clear and open and surrounded by pale blue sky” Mr. Shiftlet and Lucynell gets married at the courthouse. As they say their farewell to
Mrs. Crater the sky is full of life. Reaching their destination Mr. Shiftlet leave Lucynell “an
TITLE OF YOUR PAPER 2 angel of Gawd” at the Hot Spot. During his drive away from the motel the “afternoon had grown hot and sultry and country has flattened out”. A storm was brewing ahead, further Mr. Shiftlet got from the motel he picks up a hitchhiker that angrily screams “you go to the devil” and jumps out of a moving car. Mr. Shiftlet has lost his salvation as his aware “there was a guffawing peal of thunder from behind and fantastic raindrops, like tin-can tops, crashed over the rear”.
Tom. T Shiftlet character is known to be a Blasé about the world. In his first appearance he turned himself around to look at the sunset, swinging “both his whole and short arm up slowly so that they indicated an expanse of the sky and his figure formed a crooked cross. Seeing
Lucynell for the first time “she had long pink-gold hair and eyes as blue as a peacocks
In return, the old women and Mr. Shiftlet began to negotiate the terms in which Mr. Shiftlet would marry Lucynell in turn making poor young Lucynell a pawn in their game to see who can get what they want faster (Walters). All said and done Mrs. Crater had played right into Mr. Shiftlet’s hands and had agreed to pay to have the car painted, let him keep the car, and give him Seventeen-fifty to pay for their honeymoon, all so she could get what she wanted the whole time. A son-in-law. Not only had Mrs. Crater made multiple selfish decisions that affected her but they also affected her innocent daughter. By being so “ravenous for a son-in-law” Mrs. Crater willingly even though unknowingly caused her daughter to be deceived and abandoned by her
How to Save a Life The Fate of Mr. Shiftlet & the Crater Women Often, a story’s title tells a much bigger story than it initially puts on. The title of Flannery O’Connor’s short story, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, creates an entire theme for the story. The title is used within the story, when Mr. Shiftlet passes a road sign stating the exact words.
To strengthen resilience, we need to exercise it like a muscle. But to what extent should we exercise resilience and what happens to human emotional wellbeing when the fatigued muscle is overworked? In Anne Petry’s novel, The Street, and Joan Didian’s essay, “Los Angeles Notebook”, the authors both use literary devices to show how adversity can affect people; however, Petry uses imagery of debris, diction that evokes a sense of frustration, and personification that shows the resilience of humans in times of intense, short-term adversity, while Didian uses Imagery that incites an ominous mood, Pathetic fallacy, and syntax that shows how drastically repeated, prolonged adversity can affect people. Petry shows, through the use of imagery, that garbage and debris can symbolize the hardship that each person encounters.
Flannery O'Connor (1925-1965) is one of the most influential Southern Gothic writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Verde). She draws readers time after time through her grotesque and haunting short stories. Two of her most acclaimed stories, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and "The Lame Shall Enter First" focus on the same theme; good versus evil. As well as using theme to convey her message, she utilizes irony to shock and mystify the readers. The internal struggle between a person's will power and humanity is highlighted often through her many complicated characters.
The story, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” takes place in the south. On a large plot of land with an old house and small shack where a decipating car lies. I inferred the setting of the essay to be in the 1960’s based on the text on where Mr. Shiftlet said, “He judged the car to be about a 1928 or ’29 Ford.” (O’Connor, 1955, p.1014). I was able to make an educated guess by the old woman saying, “That car ain’t run in fifteen years,” (O’Connor, 1955, p. 1014) and I speculated that the car worked before it stopped running for ten to fifteen years and guessed that it is in the 1960’s.
In Flannery O'Connor's “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” It begins with a woman named Mrs.Crater along with her thirty year old deaf daughter Lucynell. The two women watch as a man named Tom Shiftlet approaches their porch and comments on the sunset. At first, the old woman doesn’t like him and speaks of the man harshly calling him a “tramp” due to him having one arm. Tom notices the women have a car as a result comments on it. Mrs Crater tells Tom that the car hasn't run in over fifteen years as to when her husband passed away.
"Lucy in the Sky" takes place in Santa Monica, California. Lucy is a shy, quiet girl who never had many friends at all. She is very focused on her schoolwork and enjoys her parents company. Lucy meets Ross at yoga class and discovers that he is a surfer. Ross introduces Lucy to marijuana at the beach in his pickup truck.
In Robert Louis Stevenson “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” the light, the dark and the weather symbolizes the characteristics of both Jekyll and Hyde’s personality The darkness is an element The weather was always foreshadowing. Before Hyde kills Carew it was “brilliantly bright”(26). After Hyde murders Carew the next morning a fog rolled in.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses the weather to set the mood and depict the feelings of the characters. The reason that the author uses the weather for these things is due to the story being narrated by Nick. Without the narration of the characters such as Gatsby, Tom, and Daisy the only way we can see their feelings is by using the weather. One place where we can see this is during the scene where Daisy is getting ready to tell Tom that she's leaving him for Gatsby. The reader can see the author use the weather to show feeilings because the room was full of tension and anger and the characters explain the temperature.
When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure” (Alice Hoffman). In life and in this novel, weather reflects a character's internal and external actions. On a sunny day, faces are smiling, hearts are light, and life is good, compared to a dark, stormy day when everyone is stuck inside, sad and tired from doing nothing. In the novel this is shown by weather effecting each characters, and setting the tone as the reader follows the novel's course of events.
Danielle Moiren English 102 BM 40 Courtney Scott 10 October 2016 How Authors Portray Themes Outline The Relationship Between Imagery and Symbolism in “The Yellow Wallpaper” Outline Thesis Statement: In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses imagery and symbolism to establish the theme, that it represents sanity and mental illness and the sense of entrapment, the notion of Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s creativity in her writing gone astray, and a disturbance that becomes an obsession. I.
In The Scottish Play or Macbeth, weather plays into the underlying story. The skies will tell you what is going to happen. Not exactly what is going to happen, but it will tell you if something bad or good will occur. The type of weather, like lightning, rain, or overcast also conveys different meanings. Such as a supernatural event, or a foreshadow of doom.
Water: By Edward Abbey This article which is a chapter from a book is about how water impacts deserts. It starts off by Edward Abbey talking with a tourist from Cleveland, Ohio, who thinks that the desert would be a better place if it had more water. The author counters with an argument that the desert is fine the way it is, and trying to make it just like Cleveland would destroy the special qualities of the area. He says that if we had more water people would live here but where will they when they want to see something else bedsides people.