While Flannery O’Connor builds several important themes into ‘‘The Life You Save May Be Your Own,’’ the anti-materialist aspect of the story deserves special attention because it fits into what could be characterized as the anti-materialist strain in American intellectual history.
Since the founding of the republic, prominent and common Americans alike have experienced conflicting emotions regarding material wealth. After the late eighteenth-century American Revolution, John Adams, the second president of the United States, wondered how it would be possible ‘‘to...
Source: Short Stories for Students, ©2013 Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved. Full copyright.
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