Dr.Heidegger's+Experiment

=**Short Stories - Literary Devises** =

**Title: __Dr.Heidegger's Experiment__**
**Point of View:** The point of view of this story is Omnicient/ Third Person because the narrator has the view of everyone in the story. The narrator can explore the thoughts of everyone in the story. **Protagonist:** Protagonist is Dr.Heidegger because he is the central character of this story who engages our interest. The story can neither start nor move on without Dr Heidegger. He controls what happens in the story and has the ability to change the course of the story. **What type of character is the Protagonist?** He is somewhat round and dynamic character because somethings are told about Dr. Heidegger. Even though nothing is directly said about him, many things that he has acheived and done are shown in the story. By looking at his acheivements, one can infer what kind of person he is. Also, he changes over the course of the story; he learns that concequences of human reactions are disasterous when they haven drunken the Fountain of Youth. **Antagonist:** Although others might say the anatagonist would be the water from the Fountain of Youth, I think the antagnist is himself because he has to decide and fight himself about what his decision is going to be about the water from the Fountain of Youth. He does the experiment because he wants to make the right decision in himself.

**Describe the setting:** The setting is very vague; however one can infer that the setting is long time ago because the author's descriptions of the characters clothes give it away that it is not a modern time. "They laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire, the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the young men, and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl."(p.165) Dr. Heidegger's room is very gloomy and mysterious

**Type of Conflict**: Type of conflict is Man v.s Himself because he fights within himself about what decisions he is going to make. With the help of his experiment, he is able to make a moral decision, with the help of the experiment, at the end of the story.

**Describe the main conflict:** Dr. Heidegger tries out his experiment to see the result in people's attitudes and to enable himself to make the right moral decision. If he had not decided to think about other choices, the story would not exist, for he wouldn't have had to do his experiment to see which choice he should make. His final decision is: "Well- I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it- no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me!" (p.167)

**Describe the Climax of the Story:** The Climax of the story is when the vase fell and shattered in to thousands of fragments, making the rose of Dr. Heidegger wither back like the original and his guests become old again. This is the climax of the story because everything becomes a downward sprial beyond this point of the story and no new major information is given.

**How does the Protagonist change over the course of the story?** At the start of the story, Dr. Heidegger is not sure whether he wants to drink this liquid from the Fountain of Youth, because he does not know what kind of concequences it can bring to human beings. After doing the experiment on his guests, he realizes that the water from Fountain of Youth can bring disasterous and fatal concequences to human beings. He states, "Well- I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it- no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me!" (p.167)

**Describe the relationship between the title and the theme**. In my opinion, mistake is the theme of the story. The title, //Dr. Heidegger's Experiment// connects well with the theme of the story because the word 'experiment' is all about making mistakes and learning to from those mistakes to eventually succeed; mistakes and discovery is what experiments are all about. Even in this story, the guests of Dr. Heidegger make serious mistakes and enables him to make the right decisions that he had pondered about.

**How does the main conflict help to illustrate the theme?** The main conflict of the story seems to have nothing to do with mistakes, but there is some sort of connection between man v.s. himself to mistakes. Dr. Heidegger tries to make the right choices and fights himself for what kind of choices he should make, to not make any mistakes, the tries out an experiment. By doing the experiment, he realizes that the water of Fountain of Youth can bring serious concequences; therefore, he does not make any mistakes for he knows what the water from Fountain of Youth can do to human beings.

**How does the climax help to illustrate the theme?** The climax of the story shows that once one makes a serious mistake, there will be serious concequences that one will never be able to fix. In //Dr.Heidegger's Experiment,// the guests of the doctor make serious mistake and breaks the vase, containing the water from the Fountain of Youth. This mistake make the old again which they all regret but can not do anything about it.

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">**Give examples of each of the following literary terms in the story (use quotes):**
<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Simile**:"...., as if the flower were reviving from a deathlike slumber;....." (p.161) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Metaphor**:"Now Dr.Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman, whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories." (p.160)

<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Personification**: "In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door afar, within witch doubtfully appeared a skeleton." (p.159) <span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Symbol:** <span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">"In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door afar, within witch doubtfully appeared a skeleton." (p.159) The skeleton that is doubtfully peering out symbolizesthat Dr.Heidegger is hiding something unpleasant and mysterous from the past.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Foreshadowing (give both elements): **

"Even While the party were looking at it, the flower continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the doctor had first thrown it into the vase."(p.166) This forshadows that the guests would also become fragile and old again like the flower, for they had grown younger when the flower had become fresh and new.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Irony:** The fact that the guests of Dr. Heidegger all repeated their same old mistakes and bad decisions when they turned young again by the magical effects of the Fountain of Youth, is ironic. Dr. Heidegger had told them that because they had all the wisdom of elderly when they became young, they should become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the age. However, they ignore him and eventually makes the same mistakes they had made before, eventhough they know that those mistakes will bring unpleasant concequences.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Imagery:** "It was a dim, old-fahioned chamber, festooned with cobwebs, and besprinkled with antique dust."

<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica','sans-serif';">Describe the relationships between the class theme and the story.
This short story is actually all about making the right and wrong choices. If Dr. Heidegger had not decided to do make a experiment on what kind of decision he is going to make about the water of Fountain of Youth, the story would not exist at all. He was not sure what kind of concequences the water of Fountain of Youth would bring to human beings and tried out his expreriment. Another example is when the guests of Dr. Heidegger deside to ignore his advice and repeate their old mistakes. Before they drink the water, the doctors tells them, "Before you drink my respectable old friends, it would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidances, in passing a sencond time through the perils of youth. Think what a sin and a 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!" Even though they hear this meaningful and deep advice, they decide to ignore it and make the same bad decisions that they have made when they were not wise enough to decide correctly. Thus, in these ways, //Dr. Heidegger's Experiment// is all about characters making their moral choices.

=Responding Questions=
 * 1. According to Dr. Heidegger, what is the purpose of his experiment?**

Before giving his guests the water, he tells them, "Before you drink my respectable old friends, it would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidances, in passing a sencond time through the perils of youth. Think what a sin and a 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!" I can infer from this that the doctor's purpose of his experiment is to see if his guests would listen to his advice and not make the same mistakes they had made when they were immature.


 * 2. What do Dr. Heidegger's friends have in common? How does each of them behave during the experiment?**

Each of the three old gentlemen had been lovers of the Widow Wycherly and had all hated each other when they were young and healthy. Now, they were all old and fragile and their greatest misfortune was that they all were not long from getting burried in their graves.


 * 3. Why would Dr. Heidegger not stoop to bathe his lips in the Fountain of Youth? Do his friends feel the same way? Comment**

After his experiment, he says, "Well- I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it- no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me!" From his experiment, Dr. Heidegger had learned that the water from the Fountain of Youth does not bring good concequences; even though people become wiser, people tend to make the same old mistakes they had made when they were young.


 * 4. Who is the narrator of the story? Though he is not a participant in the experiment, the narrator relates all the details. How does he know what happened to the doctor and his friends? How certain of his facts is the narrator?**

Because the narrator is Omnicient/Third Person, the narrator knows everything about all the characters. The narrator knows what each charcaters are thinking and doing. Even though the narrator's facts about Dr. Heidegger's things not exact, the narrator knows everything of the characters' histories.


 * 5. What points are made about youth and aging in the story? do you agree with the views in the story? Comment**

Even though people get to have a second chance when they become young again, they tend to make the same mistakes they have made in their first time. I think the author is implying that one should age naturally not live longer than one should.


 * 7. Some scientists hope to develop a vaccine against aging. They speculate that human beings could then live approximately 800 years. Do you feel this is desirable? Explain your answer.**

I do not feel this is desirable because there are certain things made for us to do and when we get older, we achieve those things. When we die, that is when he have achived everything we are born for. However, if we live longer than we ae supposed to, life would become aimless and people would have no more goals. Ofcourse there are other reasons; however I feel that this is the most important and meaningful explaination.

<span style="color: #ae1610; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Completion 5/5 <span style="color: #ae1610; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Effort 5/5 <span style="color: #ae1610; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Content 4.5/5

<span style="color: #ae1610; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Total 14.5/15

<span style="color: #ae1610; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Questions Completion Mark 5/5

<span style="color: #ae1610; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> Total 19.5/20