That Very Singular Man, Dr. Heidegger

Abstract

T HE CENTRAL FIGURE in Hawthorne's tale Heidegger's Experiment has usually been regarded as important because he is one of the few scientists the novelist created. Yet as we see him pouring out the effervescent elixir of youth and presiding over the merrymaking that follows, his importance as serious experimenter seems overshadowed by his role as master of the revels. Most of those who have written the story have tended to emphasize its grimmer aspects, ignorino the many lighter elements that ought to command attention. Leland Schubert, for example, classifies Dr. Heidegger as villain,' and F. 0. Matthiessen calls the doctor's experiment grotesque search.2 Harry Levin seems to me to be safer and more interesting ground when he describes the story as satire,3 but what or who is being satirized he does not reveal. The suggestion is interesting because it implies that Hawthorne was capable occasion of much lighter touch than he has heretofore been given credit for. We can get at this lighter touch and discover the nature of the satire most effectively perhaps by examining the doctor and his peculi# associates, his laboratory, and his experiment. In the first paragraph of the story Hawthorne describes the doctor's four venerable friends, one of whom is beggar, the second played-out pleasure-seeker, the third a man of evil fame, and the last-a widow-the subject of scandalous stories. Moreover, at one time the three men had been on the point of cutting each