The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Mr. Shiftlet is the protagonist of “The Life You Save May be Your Own.” His name suggests the word “shifty” and hints that he can precipitously “shift” his character, goals, and physical direction. The story bears this out: He is an unreliable man who presents an idealized image of himself to Mrs. Crater and her daughter but proves to be another kind of man entirely.

Mr. Shiftlet first appears through the lens of Mrs. Crater’s opinion of him. She judges him a harmless “tramp,” yet he carries himself with an air of mystery and complexity. At 28 years old, Mr. Shiftlet “ha[s] a look of composed dissatisfaction as if he understood life thoroughly” (Paragraph 3). He reports having been “a gospel singer, a foreman on the railroad, an assistant in an undertaking parlor” and a radio performer “with Uncle Roy and his Red Creek Wranglers” (Paragraph 25). In addition, he was a US Army soldier during wartime and has traveled the world. This list of roles comports with his nature as a drifter and a wandering soul full of contradictions. He has cared for the dead and killed people, sung for God and for entertainment.

Shiftlet himself idealizes his aimless ways: “The body, lady, is like a house: it don’t go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile: always on the move” (Paragraph 68). He is not wholly without a conscience—he is unhappy after abandoning Lucynell—which suggests he may be a disillusioned romantic. His language is lofty and inquiring, but also quite self-centered. He speaks of glorious sunsets, the mystery of the human heart, and the sacrifices of the “monks of old” (Paragraph 36), sparing no opportunity to seem worldly and wise. At the same time, his impressions of humanity are laced with bitterness: “People don’t care how they lie” (Paragraph 21). Women who have lost their innocence are “trash,” and he doubts Mrs. Carter’s claim that $17.50 is all the money she has.

Shiftlet’s judgments are an effort—mostly unsuccessful—to position himself apart from others. He claims to be beyond petty concerns of money as he schemes for money. He disdains lying but then baldly lies to get what he wants. He claims to have traveled the world over, yet he refers to the Duchess of Windsor as the “Duchesser Windsor” (Paragraph 63). He waxes on about the sanctity of the mother-child relationship yet willfully separates a child from her mother with no sense of irony. All his condemnations are projections of his character flaws, though the author leaves room for interpretation regarding Mr. Shiftlet’s degree of self-awareness. It is clear that Mr. Shiftlet has double motives, but less clear when he decides to abandon his new family. With his final prayer in the story, he asks God to “wash the slime from the earth” (Paragraph 97), which suggests that he still holds himself as being above the “slime.” He seems to be as self-deceiving as he is deceiving of others, disdaining society and its norms while behaving no better himself.