Dr. Heidegger's Experiment

“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” explores ideas about old age and youth, personal identity over time, memory, shame, morality, and the possibility of wisdom. At the outset, the narrator describes how the aged characters spoiled their youth and failed in life. The guests “looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had been the offspring of Nature’s dotage, and always the gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures, who now sat stooping round the doctor’s table” (19). When introducing each character, their past is intentionally juxtaposed with their present elderly states, suggesting that aliveness is felt only when a person is young and that youth is generally the period when a person is the best version of themselves—at least physically.

The characters are distinguished by their reputations and occupations. Mr. Medbourne and Mr. Gascoigne held professional jobs, and Colonel Killigrew, though not explicitly stated, likely held a position in the military. Mr. Medbourne had lost everything in “frantic speculation” (13) and is reduced to poverty. Killigrew wasted himself “in pursuit of sinful pleasures” (13) and now suffers from physical and spiritual afflictions. Gascoigne sought power and fame as a politician but now lives in obscurity. Their choices of direction as young men match a traditional classification of poor choices: to pursue money, pleasure, or fame. Widow Wycherly however, is characterized more vaguely—or discreetly—by referring to certain “scandalous stories which had prejudiced the gentry of the town against her” (13). As a result, she now lives in almost total seclusion. The idea of a woman living apart from society on account of some shame in her past that the townsfolk do not forget recurs in Hawthorne’s works. It is explored at length in The Scarlet Letter.

After describing the four guests, the narrator turns to the setting—Dr. Heidegger’s study. Drawing on elements from gothic fiction, the narrator describes it as “festooned with cobwebs,” “dim,” and “old-fashioned” (15). There is a skeleton in a closet “with its door ajar” (15), and there are shelves laden with ancient books. One book has great metal clasps and is bound in black leather, “known to be a book of magic” (15). There is a portrait of a young women, Sylvia Ward, to whom the doctor was engaged 50 years ago. We are told that she died after taking one of the doctor’s potions after she was “afflicted with some slight disorder” (16), adding a possibly sinister element. The gothic chamber and the German doctor’s mysterious past connect Heidegger to the gothic trope of the dangerous scientist (Frankenstein was published some 20 years before), while the presence of a book of magic recalls the early modern era when science and magic were still indistinct. As a result, some scholars have suggested that Heidegger be seen in the tradition of Doctor Faustus. (Goethe’s Faust was published in two parts, in 1808 and 1832.)

The narrator then describes an ebony table upon which sits the water of youth in a cut-glass vase. The sun shines through the window and through the vase, refracting onto the faces of the guests, “so that a mild splendor was reflected from it on [their] ashen visages” (16). This “mild splendor” foreshadows the transformation that they will undergo when they drink the water. It also recalls passages in other works of Hawthorne, in which he elaborates on his theory that romances are better than realistic novels for getting at truths of the human heart because they occupy a transformed space, such as when twilight, for example, casts a magical glow over a scene and marks the separation from realism.

When the doctor places a withered rose in the vase of water and the guests see it revivify, they ask about its effect on humans. This is when the doctor reveals the reason for inviting them. They are welcome, he says, to drink from the water, although he himself will not. Then, the invitation is revealed to be not just a friendly gesture but an experiment: “With your permission, therefore, I will merely watch the progress of the experiment” (18). The nature of the experiment is suggested in the words that the doctor tells the guests after this. He advises them to remember the wisdom of their years and suggests that “it would be a sin and shame” if they should be anything other than exemplary “patterns of virtue and wisdom” on their second chance at youth (18).

As they grow young, Mr. Medbourne and Mr. Gascoigne recall their careers, thinking of what they have to do to revivify their professions and reputation. Medbourne becomes obsessed with how to get rich; Killigrew, whose health had been ruined by sinful pleasures, lusts for Widow Wycherly; and Gascoigne plots something new in politics. Wycherly admires herself narcissistically in the mirror. Since women had relied on youth and beauty for survival in society, it’s fitting that Widow Wycherly cares more about her beauty than love. The difference between the characters’ roles in society and their behavior under the effect of the magical water reflects the traditional gender roles of the 19th century, a time when women were to inhabit the domestic spheres of everyday life while men operated in the public spheres of politics and business.

As much as youth denotes vigor and beauty, it is also a “perilous” time, according to Dr. Heidegger, and even a time of unformed identity and ignorance. When the guests pass a certain stage on the journey toward youth, they become indistinct from one another, “mutually assimilated” (22), losing the well-formed individuation that characterizes mature adults, and they frolic and play as a noisy mass of youngsters. They are immediately filled with the desire to mock old people, including their former selves and Dr. Heidegger. Before long, the men are “inflamed to madness” (22) with desire, and Wycherly, absorbed in narcissistic self-admiration, gives them yeses and nos at the same time. Soon, they are groping at her and “grappling” with each other, and they knock over the vase, spilling the water onto the floor. They see the rose return to its faded self, and, before long, they do the same: “The delirium which it [the water] created had effervesced away” (27). As Wycherly’s face turns wrinkled and old again, she wishes she were dead.

Dr. Heidegger, the only person who does not participate in the experiment, learns that the promise of youth does not inherently alter who the characters are, even though they had the wisdom of old age to guide them away from making the same mistakes. Dr. Heidegger proves to himself that old age’s wisdom is superior; the guests, however, still want youth, and the story ends with their resolve to find the Fountain of Youth so they may drink from it as much as they please. Hawthorne suggests that the wisdom of age is better than the foolishness of youth. The irony is that the characters—the three gentlemen and Wycherly—cannot see this, even when given the fantastic opportunity to redeem themselves and their fates.

Dr. Heidegger’s rose is one of the most important symbols in the story. Commonly a symbol of love and passion, the rose represents the memory of Dr. Heidegger’s lost lover, Sylvia, and lost and desired things generally. It was given to him by his bride and was to be worn on the day of their wedding. It is also an image of freshness that the guests compare themselves to. Being withered themselves, they are tempted to drink the water of youth after seeing its effects on the rose. When the rose returns to its withered state once the guests destroy what is left of the water of youth, Dr. Heidegger proclaims that he loves the rose no matter how it is. Dr. Heidegger’s reaction suggests that reflection and memory might be better than immediacy and passion. In a similar vein, the effect of the water on the guests is called a “delirium” (28) more than once by the narrator. After all, under the influence of the water restoring their youth, the guests were compelled to repeat the same mistake they had already committed in their prime.

Regarding the story’s depiction of gender—in particular, in the character of Wycherly—gender roles in the 19th century were still traditional in the sense that men were providers and women homemakers. The difference between men’s and women’s values are demonstrated by what they desire in this story: The male characters are motivated by success and the pursuit of love, whereas Widow Wycherly is motivated to have her beauty and desirability.