Second Glance at The Life You Save

I would argue the theme of this story is Mr. Shiftlet's desire to regain his masculinity. The first physical description we receive concerning Shiftlet comes directly after the old woman, Lucynell Sr., labels him a tramp. The first attribute she notices is his "left coat sleeve was folded up to show there as only half an arm in it" (172). The arm is a symbol of masculinity dating back to the time of Shakespeare, and for a man to lose his arm would be alluding to the loss of his manhood. He cannot protect; he cannot work well; he is a piece of a man. Mr. Shiftlett also has no money--men are supposed to be the providers--and no home. He speaks as though his heart, his spirituality and caring nature, is detached from him and incomprehensible, an entity that even doctors "don't know more about it than you or me" (174). Mr. Shiftlet believes he is "a man, even if he aint a whole one" because he has "moral intelligence" (176). Moral integrity and the spirit of a man, he believes embody the ideal man, not his anatomical traits. Really, I agree which such a definition. Physicality should not define character. However, it seems clear by the end of the story that Mr. Shiftlet cannot atone himself in either the moral and spirited version of masculinity or the physical. He lies, he abandons, he lives selfishly. He feels like he can still hold claim to his manhood because he feels connected--on a Freudian level--to his mother, but the hitchhiker quickly dispelled his lies. The car he fixes, the massive machinery so connected to masculinity, cannot recover the his lack of manhood. He leaves his wife, the symbol of completion in a man...Eve was created to complement Adam etc...He rejects the emotionless "heart" as an object never to be understood. He relies an his wildness because a "man's spirit means more to him than anything else" but he confused spirit with abandonment, with recklessness, with selfishness. Are we really surprised when the last description of Mr. Shiftlet is him him "very quickly stepping on the gas and with his stump sticking out the window" he runs away from commitment and from those who need him? Are we surprised he still is less than a man?

I also want to comment on the pun of his name, Mr. Shiftlet. If you reverse the order of the words, it reads: Mr. Let Shift. Shifting--as in shifting eyes, shifting circumstances--connotates the unstable, the undependable. Those attributes contrast the ideal man who is the head of the family and can be depended upon to care and feed his family.