So a few days ago our American Literature class read the story of Dr. Heidegger's Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and it was an amusing story because of how the "test subjects" responded to the water from the fabled "Fountain of Youth". In the story were four friends of Dr. Heidegger's: Widow Wycherly, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne. All four of them were once at the height of their glory days, though soon became obscure and infamous from all their deeds in their youth.
But back to the point. The point is, Dr. Heidegger used this experiment on the four elderly friends to see the extent of the power of the water from the Fountain of Youth and just how a typical human being would react when given a second chance to relive their youth. The water was proven quite powerful when the 50 year-old rose magically returned to its former bloom when it fell into the water; it also turned his friends back into their youthful and beautiful selves. The funny thing is, while the four friends had turned young, the mirror showed a different aspect: they were the same old people in the mirror.
Anyway, the four "test subjects" didn't exactly use the water wisely because almost instantly, they began to squabble and fight over Widow Wycherly. Just like old times. Amidst their struggle to gain the upper hand, they had knocked over the table, and with it, the vase containing the water from the Fountain of Youth. BAM! Just like that, they slowly felt their old age coming back to them and they were mostly horrified.
The four foolhardy friends then planned to find the legendary Fountain of Youth, with vain hopes of becoming young once again. The lesson of this story is how human nature is quite weak, because when given a chance to relive a time in their lives, they would make the same mistakes.
Arielle,
ReplyDeleteDr. H was not trying to go back in time with this experiment. If he were trying to do that, there would be many experiments along that path, and this would just be one of them. However, in the beginning, the water turned the dead rose to living - perhaps if he had the bones of his love he could have made her living, right? I still took it to mean that he would have, had things turned out differently, been able to not age further himself, giving him more time to figure things out.