Sunday, October 5, 2014

Dr. Heidegger's Experiment

(Important Notice: The picture above is from here.)
In a blink of an eye, the first quarter is coming to an end. We've read almost a dozen of stories this quarter and recently we've been reading an allegory story Dr. Heidegger's Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne. You can read the story here.
The story is basically about this old man called Dr. Heidegger who invited four venerable guests, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, Mr. Gascoigne, and Widow Wycherly, to be the subjects of his newly experiment - the Fountain of Youth. Before the story started, the author, Hawthorne, gave each guests a short description about their background life, which was all negative. Mr. Medbourne represents greed, Colonel Killigrew represents waste of health and lust, Mr. Gascoigne represents hypocrisy, and Widow Wycherly represented vanity. Dr. Heidegger offered this "magic" potion that can give you the opportunity to experience youth a second time, however he did warn each guests that the effect of the potion may all just be an illusion, just like the effect of drinking wine. So the guests all took the bait of drinking the potion, and once they saw the effect - becoming younger, they not only started to imitate and mock old people, they also started to repeat their past mistakes. For example, the three male guest all started to fight over the widow. In the end, they spilled the magic potion - Fountain of Youth, and the reality came rushing back. The four guest ended up obsessing over this potion. On the very next day, they went on a trip to Florida to find this potion.
This story is basically mocking weak human nature, and the moral of this story is basically about how some people will still make the same mistake even when they are given an opportunity to change it.
Overall, I'd say that really enjoyed flipping through this story. It lured me to read the next sentence and get to the bottom of the whole interesting plot. For more information on Dr. Hiedegger's experiment, please visit here.


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