In the story by Flannery O’Connor The Life you Save May be Your Own, a young drifter abducts a woman he has recently married to leave her at a gas station and drive away with her mother’s car, a gift for their wedding.
As he drives away, he reads a sign that says, “Drive carefully. The Life you save may be your own.”
He is among the class of citizens now for whom this sign was written. From Man with no Automobile, to Man with Automobile, whose intended philanthropy toward other lives by driving well is rewarded with a reminder that it may be himself, in the end, that he saves.
This ending is so multifaceted and poignant, because, despite clearly reaping the benefits of a message meant for conscientious citizens, of which he is not one, yet still, even as a scoundrel, he is human enough to feel entitled to the gratification. And we feel human enough, as readers, to grant him the gift.
The “moment of grace” O’Connor talks about as grounding all of her stories, is present here in the last sentiment. Among all his strengths and connivings, Tom Shiftlet, is weak enough to need to feel endorsement and pride. And it is the ironic twist that brings this feeling about by means of the car he has just stolen from a weak old woman and her weaker daughter.
There are layers upon layers here. Like a mound of gradient planes. There is a victim and a predator, yes. But there is also heart and heartache. There is knowing trickery and the surprise of accidental elation. Just as she is at the mercy of his scheme, he is at the mercy of the sign that puts him in his place even as it presents him with the illusion of his own importance.
Like the fake story that wins you the Honors of Honesty contest, Tom Shiftlet uses a car that isn’t his to reap a reward that isn’t his. A reward that isn’t his but for which there is a spot in his character nevertheless. The story seems to say that perhaps we could all be scoundrels if we had the characteristics this man has and certainly, even scoundrels need affirmation that they are honorable.
National fables and cinema illustrate the way in which a culture as a whole upholds the tenets of moral goodness despite the fact that many of its citizens must necessarily be engaged in work that is less pure. No one likes a movie in which the scoundrel wins. Unless the scoundrel is in fact the good guy and only giving those who prefer to use their skills for evil a taste of their own superior medicine. But, basically, both the guy who just swindled an old woman out of her life’s savings for a not-so-very-good car and the man who saved his neighbor’s child from drowning today want the good guy in the movie to win.
And so does Tom Shiftlet. He knows what a good guy is and now, thanks to his new automobile, he can feel like one. Never mind the means to that end. There must be a reference to this too, in the Psychology 101 book on my desk, but righteousness is ever righteous. Self-serving, self-amplifying righteousness sticks to us like a candy stick and we collect it as we go along a road down which the acts of cruelty we perform are miraged over with signs that say “Thank you for your generous donation. You are he who makes a difference in the higher orders.”
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Some day in the near distant future, humans will have the opportunity to control their own population dynamics scientifically. Not only physiologically but socially. There will be a movement, a concerted, centralized effort to strive for future generations of people who are capable of fulfilling their entire potential. People who are the perfect scoundrel or the perfect angel and have no reservations or no drive to be a little more one or less of the other. People on whom the “Life You Save” sign will be lost. Then, literature will become boring and disappear next to its own moment of grace. But we won’t know it.
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Works
O'Connor, Flannery. "The Life You Save May be Your Own." var. collections
O'Connor, Flannery. "On Her Own Work." Mystery and Manners. Eds. Sally and Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Noonday. 1969 (1957). 118.
Hey, Maya
ReplyDeleteInteresting take on the scoundrel. I will have to read that story. Morals are mostly an agreed upon fantasy, much like history, but I think that our mass acceptance of a certain morality has to do with self protection.
Samurai once felt morally free to test the edge of their swords by cutting the heads from random beggars. They had no qualms about killing peasants. The Japanese peasantry disarmed and dispersed these head-chopping bully-boys once they had gun powder weapons. The society enshrined a new moral to protect itself. No killing the helpless.
I have always thought that genetic engineering will fundamentally change humanity both for the better and for the worse.
Getting rid of genetic weakness is okay, but there has to be plenty of diversity. If stupidity could just be cured so would most social problems.
People are like lemmings and will buy the most popular traits for their designer children. Imagine a whole generation of nothing but the beautiful people, body-clones of the movie stars of the previous generation, with different faces but essentially as alike as peas in a pod. They would be lotus eaters, without any reason to compete. Would the ugly misfits then become the stars to that generation? Where would it all end up?
If you let the government have any control then they would endeavor to remove 'criminal' genes and that is a slippery slope indeed.
The problem with scientific control of population dynamics is that we have to really understand the goal. We were sculpted by evolution to survive. If we supplant the 'bad' genes that make us say, have an explosive temper, and all become placid then what happens when conditions change around us and we need that temper to survive? We could well become a race of panda bears, a dead end, over specialized within our little urban niche and unable to make it when the chips are down. There has to be room for randomization.
That is the role of the misfit in society. There has to be someone who will react differently and show the way.
But who wants to be a misfit? I would still buy the best genes that I could for my own kid. Our own inbuilt hypocrisy will take us right to the brink one day.
Hi, Jim.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree. If we control reproduction, the unknown effects will kill us. But if we don't control it, we'll starve ourselves off the planet. Either way, we're kind of screwed.
What fascinates me about the O'Connor story is how Shiflet is allowed to feel virtuous only after he has been thoroughly nasty. and that, even after being nasty, he is still, like all humans, interested in being patted on the back. It's interesting to me that even immoral people enjoy a good moral. That is, no matter what our social code is, people who enjoy hurting others still enjoy being perceived as the kind of person who actually helps others. There IS a great deal of hypocrisy in this, and I think it is because the modules for doling out pain and for receiving reward are independent. Only bound when forced to by experiment or repercussion.