Literary comparison between the life you save may be your own and Good Country People
Looks can be deceiving, and when the old woman saw the tramp approaching her house and thought him to be harmless she could not have been more off target. Mr. Shiftlet preyed on the old woman’s fancies. He was a manipulative charlatan that was obsessed with the salvation and purification of the world. Shiftlet can be viewed as an image of a broken Christ. He employs himself about the farm fixing things that seemed to be irreparable and eventually he resurrects the car from the “dead” like Christ did with Laeretes. Because of Mr. Shiftlet’s short comings he cannot be viewed as a perfect image of Christ, but seen as a broken and sinister form.