Dr.+Heidegger's+Experiment

By Rory Christopher and Sam McColl

Monday, October 11, 2010

Short Stories - Literary Devises Title: Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment

Point of View: 3Rd person and omniscient

Protagonist: Dr. Heidegger

What type of character is the Protagonist? Round and Dynamic

Antagonist: Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, Mr. Gascoigne, and Widow Wycherly.

Describe the setting: The setting is a dim old-fashioned chamber/study. 3:00-8:00 p.m. 1800s-2000s The mood and atmosphere at the beginning and end of the story is gloomy, eerie, and tense. In the middle of the story the mood and atmosphere is joyous and boisterous.

Type of Conflict: Man v. Himself

Describe the main conflict: The main conflict is, trying to have the youthful physique and body of a younger person, but still having the wisdom and penitence.

Describe the Climax of the Story: The climax of the story is when, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, Mr. Gascoigne, and Widow Wycherly start to progress back into old age.

How does the Protagonist change over the course of the story? He becomes wiser, after seeing how Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, Mr. Gascoigne, and Widow Wycherly make fools of themselves; he knows that you cannot have youth, and also have wisdom.

Describe the relationship between the title and the theme. The relationship between the title **Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment** and the theme, the desire to have wisdom and penitence at the same time that you have youth and exuberance, is that the experiment was to see whether or not you could have both of these traits.

How does the main conflict help to illustrate the theme? The main conflict helps to illustrate the theme, by showing that even after they became old, they

How does the climax help to illustrate the theme?

<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Give examples of each of the following literary terms in the story (use quotes):

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">Simile: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">Youth, <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';"> like the extremity of age…”

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">Metaphor: “They were all melancholy old creatures…”

<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Personification: “… it was a ponderous folio volume…”

<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Symbol: The guests shrinking back to old age was a symbol for showing that old age comes with wisdom and penitence, but youth and exuberance cannot come with this trait.

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">Foreshadowing (give both elements): “It is a circumstance worth mentioning that each of these three old gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, were early lovers of the Widow Wycherly, and had once been on the point of cutting each other's throats for her sake.” <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">““ Dance with me, Clara!" cried Colonel Killigrew  <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';"> no, I will be her partner!" shouted Mr. Gascoigne. <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';"> promised me her hand, fifty years ago!" exclaimed Mr. Medbourne.  <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';"> all gathered round her. One caught both her hands in his passionate grasp another threw his arm about her waist--the third buried his hand among the glossy curls that clustered beneath the widow's cap. Blushing, panting, struggling, chiding, laughing, her warm breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove to disengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. Never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize.”   <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">Irony:" you drink, my respectable old friends," said he, "it would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in passing a second time through the perils of youth. Think what a sin and shame it would be, if, with your peculiar advantages, you should not become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the age! <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';"> doctor's four venerable friends made him no answer, except by a feeble and tremulous laugh; so very ridiculous was the idea that, knowing how closely repentance treads behind the steps of error, they should ever go astray again.” " <span style="font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;"> they were young: their burning passions proved them so. Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals began to interchange threatening glances. Still keeping hold of the fair prize, they grappled fiercely at one another's throats.”

<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">Imagery: “It was given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder; …”

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">Describe the relationships between the class theme and the story. The relationship between the class theme, mystery, and the story is the question, what if the four guests didn’t act as rowdy and impolitely as they did? Would they have stayed young and lived with penitence and wisdom? No one will ever know except for <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nathaniel Hawthorne.

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">1.) According to Dr. Heidegger the experiment was, to test whether he should drink the water or not, the other people show him that he should not because they make fools of themselves, proving he should not drink any of the water.

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">2.) Dr.Heidggers friends all acted in a very impolite fashion. The men also, all dated the widow at one point and were at each others throats at one point of their lives.

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">3.) Dr. Heidegger would not stoop to bathe his lips in the Fountain of Youth because it took such a long time to become old, and he did not want to go through all the time and effort to get back to that stage of life.

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">4.) Nobody knows, that is why the point of view is omniscient and 3Rd person. He is not a huge part of the story, he does not draw you in to find out who he is and there is really no interest towards finding out who the narrator is. Nobody knows how he knew all this information, this person just knew it all. The narrator is mostly certain about the facts he is giving.

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">5.) Youth and aging are all a part of life, so live with it. Aging is a good thing, instead of being a crazy 20-something year old, and doing bad things all your life, you can be a nice, well-rounded, and polite person. I do agree in the views of the story, because in this world, you don't regularly meet lots of college/university students that a re always polite, not that older aged people are always. But, older aged people tend to be less crazy and rambunctious than younger people.

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">7.) I do not feel this is desirable, I don't think that people should live for more than a hundred years, at the maximum, we have a population crisis going on right now, and people being 23 for a long time wouldn't exactly be that great because they would never gain any wisdom/penitence anyways. <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';"><span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Completion: 4.5/5 Effort: 4.5/5 Content: 4.5/5 total: 13.5/15

Question Completion Mark: 5/5

total 18.5/20