"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment:" Story Analysis

 Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathanial Hawthorne born 1804 , passed away 1864. Born in Salem, Massachusetts. Started writing short stories then began to write novels. His best known novel is The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne is famous around the world and without doubt one of Americas's greatest writers.

Story Summary 

The story takes place in the house of Dr.Heidegger . He wants to try out an experiment so therefore he invites four friends to help him with it. These four friends are all known to each other and are elderly people.The experiment consists in each of them drinking water from the " fountain of youth " that Dr.Heidegger has received from a friend. He shows them first what the watter does to the rose and then desperetly they all start drinking from the water , as they drink it they start to get young again , but with little time they all go back to how they looked before. 

Plot Analysis

  

Plot for dr.heidenggers experiment. from grecha92

  Character Analysis 

Dr.Heidegger- Strange but Focused man.This doctor invites four friends to an experiment he wants to realize. He is an intelligent and observing man.

 

Mr.Medbourne- Old bearded gentleman. Once a richman turned poor because of greedyness, he made a couple of bad business deals and lost his fortune due to it . Now he begs for money to stay alive.

 

Mr. Gascon - Old bearded gentleman. Once a famouse politican , but because of dishonesty and theft he was sent to jail. Now he was poor and lived in shame.

 

 

Colonel Kllingrew - Old bearded gentleman. Once a great soldier , but spent his life alwaysing eating and drinking too much. Now his health was pretty bad and spent most of his time sick.

 

 

Widow Wycherly - She was once quite beautiful , but so very conceited. Always thinking she was the most beautiful woman in town. She now is not beautiful at all.

 

 Moral Teaching

The moral teaching in this story is that some people never change and due to this they suffer and bad things happen to them. The water given to them made them young but with new energies came the same results , none of the characters changed their attitudes and defects. 

  Personal Opinion

My Personal opinion of the story is that it's not really an interesting story. I think the characters in the story are predictable and not very interesting it could be because of the shortness of the story. The irony in this story is a particular , because the four people knowing they will get another " chance " at life , and knowing what they did wrong in their past life dont change at all. All that they want is to be young again and to have more and more of the water to be able to do what they had done years ago again.