Part II: Resurrection

After Shiftlet moves into the Crater's farm, he repairs a broken fence and hog pen, teaches Lucynell her first word ("bird"—a recurring symbol in O’Connor’s fiction), and most importantly, fixes the automobile. "With a volley of blasts, it emerged from the shed, moving in a fierce and stately way. Mr. Shiftlet was in the driver’s seat... He had an expression of serious modesty on his face as if he had just raised the dead." At this moment, when Shiftlet seems most like a bearer of heavenly powers, Mrs. Crater offers Lucynell to him. However, he responds, "It takes money," suggesting he might be becoming more interested in wealth. Soon, he compares the human spirit to an "automobile," and his smile transforms into "a weary snake."

Earlier references to nature’s beauty have now shifted to its darker aspects. Desperate to secure Shiftlet's services and marry off her daughter, Mrs. Crater offers him a small sum. In this symbolically significant car, the three drive into town, and Shiftlet and young Lucynell get married. Shiftlet’s once mournful philosophical inquiries turn bitter now that he has a wife and some money. The newlyweds then embark on their honeymoon.

Part III: Abandonment

The newlyweds stop at a diner, and in the middle of their meal, Lucynell passes out. "She looks like an angel of Gawd," says the boy serving food at the diner, to which Shiftlet simply responds, "Hitchhiker." He pays for lunch and abandons Lucynell.

Afterward, Shiftlet becomes "more depressed than ever" and "kept his eye out for a hitchhiker." As a storm begins to break in the sky, Shiftlet sees a road sign that reads, "Drive carefully. The life you save may be your own." He then offers a ride to a boy who wasn't even hitchhiking.

Shiftlet tries to make conversation, sharing stories about his sweet mother, who he describes as "an angel of Gawd." But the boy is unimpressed by Shiftlet’s sentimentality. "My old woman is a flea bag and yours is a stinking polecat," he snaps before jumping out of the car. Shocked, Shiftlet feels "the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him," and exclaims, "Oh Lord! Break forth and wash the slime from the earth!" The rain finally breaks, with a "guffawing peal of thunder from behind and fantastic raindrops, like tin-can tops, crashing over the rear of Mr. Shiftlet’s car." Shiftlet then speeds off to Mobile, Alabama.