Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney by Edna Ferber
The Life You Save May Be Your Own, by Flannery O'Connor
http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/lifeyousave.htm
http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/lifeyousave.htm
The Life You Save May be Your Own
ReplyDeleteThe two main characters are two women, both of them called Lucynell Crater. One is the mother, the other is the daughter. The daughter is a deaf-mute girl. The mother is concerned a lot about her and how she is going to do with her life. While the two women are sitting, Tom Shiftlet comes and comments on the beautiful sunset. There he notices the car there. The mother says this car has 15 years unused.The mother asks him some details for him but he tells her how she can be certain that he is telling the truth. He tells is a carpenter and offers him a place to stay and food to eat. She asks him too , if he is married or not. The answer is that hasn’t found still the appropriate one . In his work, he makes a lot of progress, and he helps the young Lucynell to “say” some words. He fixes the car. The elder Lucynell, proposes him to get married with her daughter and provides him some money. Initially, he doesn’t accept, but at the end he does. Lucynell Crater and Tom Shiftlet get married. In one situation, Tom remembers his angelic mother and he bursts into tears.
So by this is understood that this deaf girl is used and her mother married her in exhange of money. Her husband considers her as a source of providing money and car. In this way, real relationships are lost, and women many times are mistreated. So what’s the point here? Bargain is more important than human relationship and feelings???? Not, of course not. Real feelings are essential for each person.
ReplyDeletethe story revels a sense of ironic. The author had let the road sign as the title of the story in the end of it. maybe because he wanted to show that the antagonist of the story is the one who 'save' his life. The old lady because of her short-term reasoning to conceive a marriage has lost both her daughter and her money also her husband car. the way she presented her daughter as she were a household appliance make you believe the really concept of a woman being. She does not need the use of words even in receiving way also in producing way. The girl is deaf and this cannot bother her presume husband. this words said by her mother let you understand that the real problem is the model this mother gave to her daughter. She had to be married as it is a norm to be fulfilled at all cost. She know the disability of her daughter for that reason she agreed with a man to 'buy' him as her daughter's spouse... the end of the story revels the real nature of the man who exploited from the situation and gain his own profit in this case the car he wanted so much.
ReplyDeleteThe life you save maybe your own. Is an interesting and a weird story in the same time . We have two women that are staying in the garden of their house , when suddenly goes a man with a arm cut. He says that I don't have a arm and he looks like he wanted to stay there to work but the old lady says to him I can give you work here but no money ,, and also she asked the man to marry to her daughter that was a deaf-mute girl . The man asked the old lady how old is She?? She says about 50 or 60 years old and after she says about 30. He didn't accepted and after he started to work and to fix few things there after he accepted to marry her and first he started to learn the lady to talk . He asks the old lady the car also to drive with her daughter and she gives him the car . They lefted from there and during the road he asked the lady if she hungry and throughout the signs they stopped in a restaurant to order sth,,,, the waiter come and take orders the lady was lying on the table of restaurant and the man says to the waiter take care of her , he said yes I will I'm a good man . The man lefted from here with his car ,, suddenly he met a man that he insisted to take it . And he took him from the road but the man started talking for his mother how was her "like an angel " but the boy said your mother was a devil one. The boy go out the car and the man was driving in his own. The story ended in that weird way!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe story is about a man who benefits from the situation without taking into account the hurt of a girl with disabilities simply to get a car. The way how did the mother considered her daughter was more about a marriage contract rathen than happiness but at the end of the story the man who married with her only for the car left her in a lost place and leave.
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ReplyDeleteThis story reveals a really irony of fate. The girl, which is a deaf-muted person was "used" by both,her mother and her husband. Maybe her mother is concerned about her daughters future, as mostly mothers do. But,on the other hand, the decision she took to marry her daughter was not fair, because her husband only wanted to take advantage of her. She was a person with disabilities and had not the right to object this farce. The man only wanted to take her the car,that was his only interest towards the girl.
ReplyDeleteI read this story and it was too weird. How can a mother marry her daughter to this man? Even why she was 30 years old and deaf and dumb, it’s not right marry her with a normal guy. She should marry a boy like herself . The boy wanted just her husband car and money. He was selfish and bad boy. Her mother made a big mistake with her daughter. It’s like she was bored with her daughter and she wanted to get her away from home. It’s not fair for a girl like her.
ReplyDeletewhat I have understood from all this story{The Life You Save May Be Your Own,}, is that everyone wanted to fulfill a wish. Like the mother wanted her daughter to be happy and Mr. Shiftlet saw this as a chance to fulfill his wish to have a car and travel. in my opinion this is very bad because if you want to accomplish a wish, accomplish it without hurting someone.
ReplyDeleteHer mother did a huge mistake by marrying her daughter with a man who only wanted the car, her fortune and nothing else. Maybe she wanted to get away from her and not worrying for her any more. This girl needs someone to take care of her and treat her as she deserves.
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ReplyDelete"The life you save maybe your own" talks about a horrible reality that nowadays is happening often and often. In majority cases the marriage isn't based on love or feelings as in that book. Here the father wants someone to marry her daughter and he makes a big mistake because married his daughter with a man who wants only her car and nothing else,no feelings,nothing (just a materialist man).
ReplyDeleteThere is a very interesting message with that book that we must not accept what others wants for us, but only what we think is better for us.
The life you save may be your own is a sad and cruel story. The girl in this story is handicapped and her mother takes care of her. She made a huge mistake deciding for her daughter's life,by marrying her with the first man she came across. A man whose interest was only the fortune. At the beginning of the story the man Tom represents himself as a good person who is looking for a honest woman to get married, but after marrying Lucynell (the girl?) who is innocent and pure he dumps her at a diner restaurant .
ReplyDeleteI feel very sorry about Lucynell because she don't deserve people like Tom and her mother but people who takes care of her and really love her for what she is.
In the story there are three characters: a man who is obsessed after an old car, a desperate mother who is doing everything she can to marry her daughter and a young deaf girl who is as innocent as one can be. The story is a message for every parent in the world. Never see your children as obstacles and marriage as a way to get rid of them. Children are a gift from god and and we should love them in the way that gift was given.
ReplyDeleteLove your children despite their flaws because if you,the parents don't love them don't expect a stranger to do that.
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