Third Level Question: What are some of the traits Mr. Shiftlet portrays?

The Life You Save May Be Your Own
In “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” by Flannery O’Connor, Mr. Shiftlet arrives at a farmhouse looking for work. Shiftlet demonstrates a devious style, hypocritical personality and opportunistic ideas. The story takes place in an old woman’s house, who lives with her disabled daughter. With them, Shiftlet displays his deviousness, hypocriticalness, and opportunistic style through actions and phrases. Shiftlet reveals his devious style when he wants something and aims to get it. Getting the car is the main reason Shiftlet traveled to the house. Each of Shiftlet’s actions led to him getting the car in the end of the story, while shows his deviousness, “Mr. Shiftlet’s pale sharp glance had already passed over everything in the yard.” Shiftlet’s deviousness appears in the story by acting nice and marrying the daughter just to get the car. After, Shiftlet ends up ditching the daughter and taking the car. Shiftlet reveals his deviousness when he says, “I can tell you my name is Tom T. Shiftlet and I come from Tarwater, Tennessee, but you never have seen me before.” Shiftlet reveals his hidden motive; to acquire the car. Shiftlet displays his hypocrisy attitude through his actions. Shiftlet says one thing, but ends up doing the opposite. Shiftlet presents hypocrisy when he says, “Nothing is like it used to be lady, the world is almost rotten.” Shiftlet planned to steal from her since the beginning, “lady nowadays people’ll do anything anyways. How you know my name ain’t Aaron Sparks, lady, and I come from Singleberry, Georgia.” An example of Shiftlet showing hypocritical behavior is when he marries the daughter. Shiftlet says he will take care of her but ends up leaving her behind and taking the car. Shiftlet also represents an opportunistic trait. Every chance he gets to make money, he takes. Shiftlet fills his needs through stealing from an old woman, which establishes Shiftlet’s scheme. In order to get what he wants, he tricks the lady into trusting him and ends up backstabbing her. Shiftlet displays an opportunistic manner by saying “unless I can take her to a hotel and giver something good to eat.” This shows that Shiftlet is trying to get the mother to give him some money “to stay at a hotel and get something to eat.” When Shiftlet arrives at the house, he takes the opportunity to stay and work on the car. Once he finished working on the car, he takes the chance and drives. Any chance that he gets to gain something, he takes only thinking about himself. Deviousness, hypocriticalness and opportunistic behaviors are a few of Shiftlet’s traits. In the story, he gets Lucynell to trust him because he knows that in the end he will have a chance to take the car. Tricking her creates an opportunity to steal the car. At the same time, Lucynell tries tricking him into marrying her daughter to release her responsibility for her. By taking advantage of both the mother and daughter, Shiftlet reveals some of his traits.