Mr. Shiftlet is the protagonist of “The Life You Save May be Your Own.” His name suggests the word “shifty” and hints that he can precipitously “shift” his character, goals, and physical direction. The story bears this out: He is an unreliable man who presents an idealized image of himself to Mrs. Crater and her daughter but proves to be another kind of man entirely.

Mr. Shiftlet first appears through the lens of Mrs. Crater’s opinion of him. She judges him a harmless “tramp,” yet he carries himself with an air of mystery and complexity. At 28 years old, Mr. Shiftlet “ha[s] a look of composed dissatisfaction as if he understood life thoroughly” (Paragraph 3). He reports having been “a gospel singer, a foreman on the railroad, an assistant in an undertaking parlor” and a radio performer “with Uncle Roy and his Red Creek Wranglers” (Paragraph 25). In addition, he was a US Army soldier during wartime and has traveled the world. This list of roles comports with his nature as a drifter and a wandering soul full of contradictions. He has cared for the dead and killed people, sung for God and for entertainment.

Shiftlet himself idealizes his aimless ways: “The body, lady, is like a house: it don’t go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile: always on the move” (Paragraph 68).