Dr.+Heidegger

Short Stories - Literary Devises Title: Dr. Heidegger's experiment.

Point of View: 3rd person Protagonist: Dr. Heidegger

What type of character is the Protagonist? He is a round, dynamic character

Antagonist: The water

Describe the setting The story takes place in Dr. Heidegger's laboratory around the 1830's. It has a dark, cold, mysterious atmosphere.

Type of Conflict: Man vs self

Describe the main conflict: The main conflict in the story is Dr. Heidegger's guest and themselves. Their conflict is against themselves and their own foolishness that the Doctor thought they would have learned to control. They do not fight this conflict well though, they do not fight against their own will to return to their own ways. They go straight back to their old ways of youth. The obstacle could either be the water that caused their burst of youth, or it could be themselves for not learning better from experience. The water does not just effect the guests but also Dr. Heidegger. He fights against himself with the decision whether he should drink the water and try again for love. The water again causes this struggle of mind.

Describe the Climax of the Story: The Climax is when Dr. Heidegger's 'test subjects' start to go back to their old ways and fight over the widow. This causes them to spill over the rest of the water from the fountain of youth.

How does the Protagonist change over the course of the story? Dr. Heidegger changes from a calm and guiding man who thinks his friends will know better if given a second chance, to a intrguided, confused, and amused but horrified man. He also changes his thoughts on whether he should drink the water. At first he did not want to relive the pain he felt while he was young, but after watching the test, he started to contemplate if he should click the restart button on life.

Describe the relationship between the title and the theme. Dr. Heidegger's Experiment relates to the theme of humans repeating mistakes because many experiments are repeated despite failure. Dr. Heidegger is experimenting on the hypothesis that humans will ignore their mistakes and are doomed to repeat themselves. If his findings were that one will learn from their mistakes, he might have declared a new try on life. Since his findings were the opposite, his contemplation of choosing youth was not reassured. It was not solidly said that he would not drink the water meaning he himself could be doomed to repeat his mistakes.

How does the main conflict help to illustrate the theme? The main conflict shows Dr. Heidegger's friends repeating their mistakes which is the theme. It illustrates an easily believed example of theme and helps the reader to understand better. Without the conflict the reader would not as well comprehend the theme of the story.

How does the climax help to illustrate the theme? The climax depicts the misguided old friends of Dr. Heidegger going straight back to their ways of youth. Even after the scarring of a what some would call a wasted youth, it did not teach them better. The climax is when they repeat their mistakes and without this climax the story would not have as clear example of theme.

Give examples of each of the following literary terms in the story (use quotes):

Simile: "They felt like new-created beings, in a new-created universe."

Metaphor: "Now Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman, whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic tales."

Personification: "The crushed and dried petals stirred, and assumed a deepening shade of crimson, as if the flower were reviving from a deathlike slumber..."

Symbol: The skeleton in the closet represents the Doctors dark secrets. It goes with the expression "skeletons in the closet." It could represent the Doctors secrets about how he treated his patients, or perhaps the true reason of death of his wife.

Foreshadowing (give both elements): "You might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ever bloom again." When the rose began to once again go back to its delicate, old, and grey form one could assume that the people would also fade from their youthful self.

Irony: The Doctor's guest mock their old selves when they become young again, but in reality their young selves are the ones to mock. The narrator also says "so very ridiculous was the idea that, knowing how closely repentance treads behind the steps of error, they should ever go astray again." and later, being as foolish as they were, they go astray again, even given a chance of a lifetime.

Imagery: "It was a dim, old-fashioned chamber, festooned with cobwebs, and besprinkled with antique dust." "The opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of a young lady, arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk, satin, and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress."

Describe the relationships between the class theme and the story. The theme of humanity relates to the behavior of the characters in the story along with the theme of the story. The characters go back to repeating their mistakes which the Author depicts as part of human nature. Even after going through a mislead past, we still repeat said past. Part of our humanity is ignorance and the refusal to learn despite its good intents. Ignorance is one of humanity's bad traits, a trait which would benefit the would. Even after failing due to our ignorance, we ignorantly repeat the mistake. It is a sort of double negative that does not produce a positive.

1) According to doctor Heidegger, the purpose of the experiment is to see the effects of the water of his friends. He might have also been looking not for just physical results, but also mental results.

2) All of Dr. Heidegger's friends share a bad youth which they at first said to have regretted. During the experiment each wanted more of the water and wanted youth. Their greed kicked in and after the experiment they wanted to stay in their youth. Each of them behaved in a selfish way and each went back to their bad ways.

3) Dr. Heidegger does not want to drink the water because, unlike his friends, his youth was full of pain and heartache. After many years his hurting stopped and his old age numbed his regret. His friends though enjoyed their youth and did not enjoy their old age, but unlike Dr. Heidegger, they had not learned from their mistakes.

4) The narrator of the story could be an adapted version from Dr. Heidegger's view. The Doctor could have told another person about the experiment and they then wrote about what they had here adopting a 3rd person sound.

5) In the story, youth and aging is referred to as gaining experience over time. Youth was referred to as an ignorant time of age. In youth we have not experienced as many problems and are unaware of how to avoid them. We are foolish and ignorant at youth and never take full advantage of its short time. Knowledge of how to avoid mistakes could be a curse, not a fortune. People talk about youth being their best time even though it is when they fail the most. I agree that in youth we are foolish and inexperienced and only aging will antidote these problems.

7) I believe this vaccine against aging would greatly benefit the world. Whenever a great scientist dies, their field is held back a few years. If a scientist could work on their field for 800 years instead of 60 mankind would rapidly grow in technology and knowledge. Some think that people living longer equals more people. I believe that population would not grow faster because most people still would only have children once because their children too would live 800 years. Their are still some scenarios that would cause over population but they could be fixed. Then again, who is to say that the advancement in technology would not make Mars inhabitable?

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