Fountain+of+Youth

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

Point of View: First Person, Limited Omniscient

Protagonist: Dr.Heidegger

What type of character is the Protagonist? He is round and Dynamic.

Antagonist: Himself

Describe the setting: A snowy day at Dr.Heidegger's study, "festooned with cobwebs" so it must have been let go of a while back, gross, dusty. The mood is curious, mysterious, and kinda creepy.

Type of Conflict: Man vs. Self

Describe the main conflict: Dr.Heidegger is trying to decide whether he should drink the magic water.

Describe the Climax of the Story: When The water spills, the glass breaks, and the youngens "tranform" back into old people.

How does the Protagonist change over the course of the story? He starts out with this idea for an experiment, probably hoping that this experiment will turn out well, so that he can go back to his youth and possibly find love again. In the end he seems dissapointed, and decides it would be a bad idea to drink the water.

Describe the relationship between the title and the theme. Doctor Heidegger conducts an experiment to see what the reaction would be to the old people, if they were once again youthful.

How does the main conflict help to illustrate the theme? The friends gave Dr.Heidegger the results, he had been seeking. They had changed physically, but also mentally. They were now kids again, inside and out, despite the knowledge they'd gained from their many years, and they hadn't listened to Dr.Heidegger about laying down some rules.

How does the climax help to illustrate the theme? The overall theme seems to be whether people can ever change, and the climax is a very VERY clear metaphor for this. They don't look to this "youth potion" as a way of perfecting their humanity, and changing for the better. They look at is as an opportunity to fool around and be kids again.

Give examples of each of the following literary terms in the story (use quotes): Simile: "black as ebony"

Metaphor: "They were not long ago in their graves..." They weren't actually dead, or in a grave in the ground.

Personification: The "spirits" in the mirror, staring at him.

Symbol: The rose

Foreshadowing (give both elements): "While he spoke, the butterfly fluttered down from the doctor's snowy head, and fell upon the floor." This is forshadowing, and making it seem like after this, the old people will revert to their old state.

Irony: When they were making fun of Dr.Heidegger, and of their old ugly clothes.

Imagery: "festooned with cobwebs"

Describe the relationships between the class theme and the story. The four friends lost sight of their humanity when they turned young. It was quite ironic too, how they started making fun of Dr.Heidegger and their own clothes.

1.The purpose of the experiment was to see if the people drinking the water would turn back to their youth, but also keep their wisdom from aging.

2. The friends involved in the experiment, were selfish, greedy, and arrogant. The Widow who was once again beautiful, turned to the mirror to admire herself, The went back to talking about politics, and the (other dude) immediately hit on the widow.

3. Dr.Heidegger was too scared to do it, because then if he had felt the feeling of being young again (like his friends when they drank it) he would be just as savage as them in the end and lose sight of what was important. His friends don't care. They were never even bit skeptical as to trying the water, and they did turn out being sort of addicted to this feeling of being young... even if it might have been just a placebo.

4. I think that the narrator of the story was someone who was told about the experiment and was then repeating it. At one point in the story the narrator says “it is said that the mirror reflected three old men fighting over a skinny old hag.” That line tells one that the narrorator was told of this expirience I think the story is supposed to be sort of like a tale that's been passed on.

5. The story shows how badly people want to stay young and youth full. I agree with that message and think that growing old would be horrible. I don’t think I’ll hate it quite as much as the people in the book but still I wouldn’t want to be old if I had the choice to be young.

7. I think it's good we don’t have it. If we could live super long we would break the circle of life, and everything will die sooner or later and people should learn to except it. Plus if we could live forever we wouldn’t have enough resources for the world. COMPLETION 5/5 EFFORT 4.5/5 CONTENT 4/5 QUESTIONS 10/12 TOTAL 23.5/27