Individualism in O’Connor’s A Good Man’s Hard To Find
In Flannery O'Connor's short story "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," the main character, Mr. Shiftlet,
asks a primary philosophical question, "What is a man?" (O'Connor 175). Like the other characters in
O'Connor's short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Mr. Shiftlet defines a human being as
primarily an autonomous individual. O'Connor worries that this extreme individualism leaves people as self-
focused wanderers without community who use others as means to their own ends. For O'Connor, this
individualism is the cause for much of the rottenness in the world.
First, many of the characters consider themselves of primary importance. In "The Life You Save May Be
Your Own," Mrs. Crater has forgotten her humble place as a creature within creation, and she stands proudly
watching Mr. Shiftlet with "her arms folded across her chest as if she were the owner of the sun" (173). This
self-righteous pose is common in O'Connor's short stories. For example, Mrs. Shortley of "The Displaced
Person" walks up a hill with "her arms [...] folded" and she "ignore[s] the white afternoon sun" (285). These
postures are signs of the truly backward individual, who closes herself off with this posture, defiantly assured
of her own merit. The grandmother in the story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" exemplifies this self-focus
and self-righteousness; she initiates every problem in the story from the first sentence: "The grandmother
didn't want to go to Florida" (137). Disregarding the desires of her family, the grandmother prioritizes her
desire to stay home.
Focusing on the self leads the characters to treat those around them as means to their own selfish ends. For
example, in "The Life You Save May Be Your Own." while Mrs. Crater interviews Mr. Shiftlet, he thinks
about the car he is going to steal. Conversely, when Mr, Shiftlet asks rhetorically about the nature and
purpose of human beings, Mrs. Crater wonders "if a one-armed man could put a new roof on her garden
house" (175). Here, she does not even consider him by name but refers to him by his handicap. Rather than
considering each other as subjects, the two individuals objectify each other. This Buberic I-It relationship,
which individualism purports, disconnects them from each other.
Moreover, once people have been degraded to objects by the individual, community holds no value.
Wandering from community to community, Mr. Shiftlet exemplifies this void. He lists his miscellaneous jobs,
revealing his instrumental relationship to communities:
He had been a gospel singer, a foreman on the railroad, an assistant
in an undertaking parlor, and he had come over the radio for three
months with Uncle Roy and his Red Creek Wranglers. He said he had
fought and bled in the Arm Service of his country and visited every
foreign land and that everywhere he had seen people that didn't care
if they did a thing one way or another. (175)
The misfit in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" shares a similar list of odd jobs: "1 was a gospel singer for a
while. [...] I been most everything. Been in the arm service, both land and sea, at home and abroad [...] been
an undertaker [...] been with the railroads" (149). The overlap seems too stark to be coincidental; although the
Misfit and Mr. Shiftlet are not the same person, they represent the same character: the lost individual who
relates to the community through constantly shifting roles. While both characters seek self-fulfillment,
Charles Taylor notes in Sources of the Self that "the primacy of self-fulfillment reproduces and reinforces [...]
negative consequences. [...] Community affiliations [...] all take second place" (507). Thus, because they lack
any commitment to other human beings, the characters fail to fulfill themselves with communal roles or
steady jobs.
At the climax of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," Mr. Shiftlet's individuality causes him extreme
discomfort when he marries the mentally handicapped daughter of Mrs. Crater, Lucynell. During the marriage
