When Mr. Shiftlet first came to the old woman's house, I thought that he was sincere about what he said. He seemed disgusted with the world and all of the hypocrisy in it. He appeared to be a man that had gotten lost in the shuffle of the business world and was down on his luck. But as he kept on talking about the world and his high standards, he became less believable. When he agrees to marry Lucynell, it seemed that he was up to something. During that whole dialogue with the old woman, he was saying something to the effect of, "I don't want to marry her if I can't support her," but then he agreed to the old woman's plan when she offered him what I believe was all she had left to live on. This seemed suspicious, but I didn't think much of it at the time.
I was rather shocked when Mr. Shiftlet just left Lucynell at the rest stop. I still thought he might have had some character at the time, but then he just left her. I felt so sorry for her. I can't even imagine how scared she would be when she woke up. Since she couldn't hear, it would be impossible for anyone to calm her down, and with a vocabulary only consisting of the world "bird", it would also be impossible for her to tell anyone what happened. I also felt sorry for the old woman, for it would be very unlikely that she would ever see Lucynell again. After this event, it became clear that all of Mr. Shiftlet's morals that he talked about when he first came to the old woman's house was just a front to get her to trust him so he could take advantage of them.
I was rather confused when Mr. Shiftlet picked up the young boy. It seemed to be a random act of compassion, but he had just ditched Lucynell. He was problably going to try to take advantage of the young boy as well, now that I think of it. That's most likely why he started saying all those nice things about mothers, maybe hoping to make the boy sad and vunerable, or so he could return him and take advantage of his family. The boy seemed to be much less gullible then the old woman when he said what he did about mothers. I was shocked when he jumped out of the car. I thought he just rolled into the ditch at the side of the road, but when the author mentioned about the cloud that looked like the boy's hat, I thought that he might have died.
When the cloud enveloped Mr. Shiftlet's car and he felt that the slime of the world was around him, that seemed very ironic since he was the lying, cheating scum of the world. The cloud might have represented his conscience, since being covered by it caused him to call out to the Lord to save him. But then when it passed, he went on like nothing ever happened.
The title came from the road signs he saw while driving, but I'm a little confused how they relate to the rest of the story. The best guess I can up with is it refers to obeying the rules of life like you would obey the rules of the road. Mr. Shiftlet's behaviour could be decribed as reckless driving, for he violates the natural trust that exists between people. The signs could be warning him that if he doesn't start obeying the laws of life, soon he will be the one who is taken advantage of.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I knew that Mr. Shiflet was a shady character to begin with. His appearance threw me the red flag only. The way he kept talking about all the hypocricy in the world was suspicious, but I got most of my opinions from his character. A one-armed man is suspicious enough, but a one-armed man that works as carpenter is even more unlikely.
I too felt sympathetic for Mrs. Crater because I think her life was her daughter. If all Mr. Shifltet wanted was the money, I think he could have found another way to get it. I think that Mrs. Crater feels guilty for getting Lucynell, the daughter, left at the rest stop because she was the one who pushed the marriage in the first place. I feel bad for her guilty feeling because it was not her fault. There was no way she could have known that Mr. Shiflet would have done that to her only daughter.
I thought that Mr. Shiftlet was an honest man at first to. He did seem like he was someone you could trust, but he turned out to be a hypocrit. I didn't think that he would marry Lucynell. I thought that he would take the car and run, but he obviously was just doing this whole thing for some money. And all he had to do was drop Lucynell off somewhere and he was good to go. I don't think that he was going to take advantage of the boy he picked up on the road. I think that he felt a little guilty after he had left Lucynell and was trying to make up for it. But it backfired when the boy got mad and jumped out of the car. I didn't see how the title related to the story either. It was on the sign along the road, but i didn't see how it went with the story.
Post a Comment