The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Innocence is complicated in this story. Lucynell is the embodiment of innocence, yet she is not innocent by choice. She is innocent because she is deaf and has a mental handicap that makes her dependent on others. She is the most trusting of the characters in the story and thus the easiest to manipulate. Through the character of Lucynell, the author comments on the rarity of innocence. As Mr. Shiftlet asks, “[W]here would you find you an innocent woman today?” (Paragraph 28), implying that most women are corrupted by life experience and low morals. When Mrs. Crater says, “That’s the kind for you to have. Right there” (Paragraph 57), she is referring to her daughter as a woman incapable of talking or living independently.

The story implies that Lucynell is a virgin, which at the time would be equated with innocence. During the post-wedding car ride, she takes off her Panama hat and begins pulling the cherries from the brim. Symbolically, this suggests that she is losing innocence, willingly destroying something beautiful. There is little indication Lucynell is aware of what’s happening around her, nor that she is presumably headed toward her wedding night. O’Connor implies the possibility, though, writing, “Every now and then her placid expression was changed by a sly isolated little thought like a shoot of green in the desert” (Paragraph 78).