ENGL 4310

It has been brought up before how many stories that we have read deal with that of “keeping up appearances.” In “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” Mr. Shiftlet brings that subject up almost every single time that he speaks. When he introduces himself to the old woman, he brings up the fact that he very well could be lying to her. He does this in order to make the old woman think that if he was bringing up the fact that he could be lying is just showing how honest he is and that he really isn’t lying. (Even though we still don’t know if what he is saying is the truth.)
He is constantly bringing up the idea that “he hadn’t been raised thataway” (175) referring to being dishonest. But all the while he is doing the opposite of what he says he is. He says what he knows the old woman wants to hear and because of that gets what he wants, which is her money and the car. I think that the real reason he is constantly saying how good he is, is to try to prove to himself that he is a good man, instead of what he really is. But I do think that he really did feel bad for what he had done to the old woman. At the end of the story when Mr. Shiftlet has picked up the hitchhiker, he talks about how horrible he is for leaving his mother, which is really the old woman. Then after the hitchhiker jumps out of the car Mr. Shiftlet sees clouds that he believes are “the rottenness of the world” which are “about to engulf him” (183). But instead of really proving that he is a good man by going back, he runs from what he has done cementing that he is a dishonest man.