The automobile is closely associated with both Death, and the Spirit in this story, and I wanted to go back to some loose threads that were bothering me during class.
The car is associated with Death in two instances: First, the old woman says he'll have to sleep in the car and he replies, "the monks of old slept in their coffins" (which they did, in order to remind them constantly of their mortality, and the importance of continuing obedience to God.) Secondly, when Shiftlet fixes the car--bringing together missing parts to make the car whole--he has "an expression of serious modesty on his face as if he had just raised the dead. The car needed new parts, so Shiftlet gathered them together to make his repairs--unfortunately, he can't get a replacement part for his arm. This notion of a car made up of parts comes up again when Shiftlet delivers a little Marxist speech about making a car as a whole, with a personal investment by the labourer, rather than a car made of alienated parts by infinite numbers of alienated labourers. The notion of missing and separate parts connects Shiftlet's body with the car itself. However, Shiftlet complicates that connection when he insists that "the spirit...is like a automobile, always on the move" (if, that is, it has the right parts). From this can we consider the possibility that Shiftlet's spirit, like his body, is not fully functional because it has been truncated in some way? It would /could be a perfectly good spirit (carrying out good intentions, etc.), if only in could overcome the diaspora of certain alienated spiritual elements--the gaps between Shiftlet's intentions and his actions could be closed with a tune-up if someone would take the trouble to gather the parts.
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The idea of the car as a metaphor for Shiftlet's spirit interests me, especially with the inclusion of the reference to monks sleeping in their coffins and Mr. Shiftlet sleeping in the car...The car, then, would be a reminder of his own mortality, and it would seem his attempt to fix the car would mimic an attempt to fix his soul. The newly running, fixed up car, as you have already mentioned, would express his freed spirit. Is it so bad, then, that Mr. Shiftlet takes advantage of this freedom of his spirit, leaving the poor girl at the diner in the process?
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