This story was very strange. It seemed to be filled with a lot of deceit. I found a lot of the story pretty hard to believe. Mr. Shiftlet basically just showed up at the lady's house. She did not know him. She immediately gave him work to do and offered him the opportunity to sleep in her car for free. I know that the car did not run and that it did not have much value, but this still seems weird to me. You would have to be a pretty trusting person to allow someone to sleep in your car. How does she know that he isn't a serial killer? That would be the perfect opportunity to kill if he was one.
Mr. Shiftlet seemed pretty suspicious to me from the very beginning. He seemed to agree with anything and everything the old woman said. He said things that he knew she wanted to hear, especially when it came to her daughter. He said that she should never let anyone take her away because she is precious. However, the old woman started to trust Mr. Shiftlet, and she allowed him to marry her daughter. I can't believe that she did this! Mr. Shiftlet has not even been around for very long. Her poor daughter, who is a deaf-mute, doesn't seem to be allowed any opinion on the whole matter. I just don't think ordinary people would do this.
I think the old woman should have started suspecting something was up when Mr. Shiftlet was begging her for more money. I know that she did not give him very much, but I don't think he had a right to point this out to her. He had no money, and to my knowledge spent nothing on the entire wedding. He did not pay for the car. Unfortunately, the old woman fell for his tricks. He haggled some more money off of her, then ditched his new wife in a restaurant somewhere. I don't think Mr. Shiftlet should have gotten married. Marriage is a rather big commitment to make for $17.50. I think that scams are bad enough, but dragging that poor girl into the scheme was truly heartless.
I think that both the boy who was hitchhiking and the cloud at the end of the story represent Mr. Shiftlet's past and future. The boy represented his past because Mr. Shiftlet felt some sympathy for him and shared a story about his own life with him. The cloud represents both his past catching up to him and his future, which is going to be hard and troublesome because of what he has done.
Comments were made to Kyrstin (http://kyrstinsblog.blogspot.com/) and to Lauren (http://laurentheeclecticishere.blogspot.com/).
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2 comments:
I really don't think that Lucynell's mother was as nieve as everyone may think. I think she knew what was going on. She may have just been tried of trying to care of her daughter. I think that getting rid of her daughter was the mother's plan all along. Why else would she do any of the things that she did? She gave this man a place to sleep, a job, and money. The mother was ready for her daughter to leave and that is why she married her off. I mean do you know many people who would marry off their child to a complete stranger if they loved them as much as this woman claimed to have loved her daughter. She wanted to get rid of her. As for the daughter, I think she was just happily oblivious. How could she really have an opinion? It didn't seem like she could really communicate.
I saw your comment to Lauren about what the title may mean, and I was thinking about it. As hard as it may be to think about. In a way, each character's life was saved in the was he or she wanted it to be. They did what they did to save their lives. The mother needed to be rid of her daughter. Mr. Shiftlet needed money and a car, and honestly leaving the daughter could have been a good thing for her. Why should she live with a man like that for the rest of her life? I know that we do not know how it ended for her, but we can only hope it was ok.
I think that this story was weird also. I think why it seemed out there is because it was set in the early 1920s. That could be why the man was okay with $17.50. In the 1920s, $17.50 was enough to get by. It was not a fortune, but it would get a person farther than it could today. That could also be why Mr. Shiftlet was able to just walk up and get a job. I think that the farms in that time period were open for extra hands to help with the work load. I do agree that Mrs. Crater was a little too trusting. When she pushed Mr. Shiftlet to marry Lucynell, it really shocked me because in the beginning she seemed like a person who did not trust anyone.
The young boy at the end probably did represent his past, present, and future. That was a good observation. Mr. Shiftlet probably ran away from home when he was young, and the young boy did also. That could be his past being represented. Also, the cloud would represent his future. When I first read the end of the story, I did not think that about the cloud, but I can see that now. Mr. Shiftlet is going to have a dark and corrupted life ahead of him, and the cloud is dark and corrupt.
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