Why Paper Pills are so Beautiful

     So I began reading Winesburg, Ohio shortly after finishing Frankenstein, and may I say that it is such a lovely change from all the darkness that we had to endure with Victor and his creature...no more bloodshed, no more horrible human traits and sinful revelations about the human condition (I hope!). But when I read "Paper Pills", the third story in the novel (or collection of short stories, it really depends on the reader), I knew that this story would be one of my favorites, and I'll tell you why: the combined symbolism and allusions that the author employs in this short, 3-page story add up to be bigger than the sum of its parts. It describes a feeling that you couldn't put your finger on; all you can do is just read the story again and get something different from it the second, third, nth time upon reading.

     First, let's start with the heart-wrenching details. The story is about a doctor who marries a beautiful girl, only to see her pass away barely a year after their marriage. What makes this woman so unique is her situation; she seems to break every literary rule in terms of symbolism as described in Foster's book. Both of her parents passed away and "had been a large fertile farm when her father died" (18). You would think that this alludes to the woman's excellent health and ability to have children, right?

Wrong.

Like I said before, she passes away merely a year after marrying Doctor Reefy! Shortly after her parents passed away, she tried desperately to find a man to marry and share her estate with, but these seemingly successful men-- alluded as perfectly round apples, "shipped to cities where they will be eaten in apartments that are filled with books, magazines, furniture, and people" (19)-- just didn't do it for her. Although they seemed perfect and charming on the outside, the woman could see through the false exterior to see the demons that these men had within them. Imagine, all those crookedly-smiling boys you meet and knowing that half of them only want to be with you because they want to exploit you...or worse! That was what she sensed in the men that she encountered--that is, until she met Doctor Reefy.

     Now Doctor Reefy is what Anderson described as the "twisted apple." As if saying so explicitly isn't enough, he has large hands that, when clenched as fists, has popping knuckles that look like...gnarled apples. He is a peculiar sort of doctor, who practices a medicine that is old and becoming obsolete in the present time. It even mentions the fact he wore the same suit for ten years, which suggests that he is stuck in time. Old-fashioned would be the best way to describe him; he writes random thoughts on paper before crumpling them up and stuffing them in his pockets.

     When the two meet, it was under rather odd circumstances; the woman had just walked into Doctor Reefy's office to ask him about her strange, deprecating condition as he was pulling out a woman's tooth. The imagery and symbolism reminds me of a rather rough sex scene, to be quite frank, and yet I don't believe that Reefy and the woman even went that far into their relationship because of her unknown illness. Nevertheless, when the two met, any other notion of meeting other men flew from the woman's mind:

"she was like one who has discovered the sweetness of the twisted apples, she could not get her mind fixed again upon the round perfect fruit that is eaten in the city apartments" (22).

Doesn't that make you sigh contentedly? I certainly did, even though I wouldn't attest to it if you asked me personally. They spent every waking moment with each other, and Doctor Reefy, the once seclusive and mysterious man, opened up his thoughts (literally: he read all the thoughts he wrote down on paper to his wife, to her delight and his joy) until the day she died. Her death is even a slap in the face for symbolist-nerds everywhere; in the fall, the season of harvest and of slowing down, the two get married; in the winter, the season of death and old age, the two spend their happiest months spending time with one another and shared the doctor's thoughts; and in the spring, the season of birth and creation, Doctor Reefy lost the woman he loved to the illness. I guess because she had such a mysterious, unexplainable illness, it defies the normal signs associated with nature and the seasons...but that doesn't make me any less upset about what happened.

But one portion in the end did make the story a lot more bearable (even though it wasn't technically a happy moment...). The last sentence described his happiness at sharing his thoughts to his sick wife during the winter, and how after he finished reading them he'd stuff them into his pockets until they became perfect, round, hard balls. Does this ring a bell??? The perfection of the sphere, formerly associated with the apples, is now used to describe the crumpled pieces of paper that Doctor Reefy wrote on. This sort of connects with the title itself, "Paper Pills"; these half-finished thoughts are the only treatment that can cure Doctor Reefy's loneliness after his wife passes away.

The allusions to perfection and perceived "imperfection" are endless at this point. The perfection of the paper balls may allude to his extreme happiness at sharing his thoughts with his wife, and how his inner being (which is where one finds thoughts, after all) was perfect, even though on the outside he had large hands and gnarled knuckles. These crumpled balls of thoughts also may refer to the "perfect" love he had with his wife, and how this memory is forever engrained within the round spheres of the paper wads. His physical imperfections didn't stop the beautiful girl from falling love with what was inside of the doctor, which was his warm, caring heart and his wonderful thoughts. The townspeople often wondered why that affluent girl left such a large portion of her wealth to the odd doctor with the odd knuckles, but to me it made perfect sense. "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples."

The Creature's Best Friend Would Be.......Dobby?

     The final day of the week, and the final assignment of the novel (an intimidating timed essay.....that was the most horrifying experience up to date) brings our class to a satisfying close to the Frankenstein novel. There are more themes in that story than I care to admit, and I'd be surprised if we even scratched the surface during our three-day seminar. But what really struck me as unusual occurred after finishing this book, when I was watching yet another movie that inspired this blog post...Harry Potter, of course. Being the hermit that I am, I celebrate Friday nights by watching old movies (did you know the second Harry Potter came out 11 years ago??? I feel old), and after watching the final scene with Dobby, I realized that he was placed in the exact situation as the creature that Victor created in the novel. It had nothing to do with physical appearance or anything, but it was the fact that, even taking into consideration their strengths and advantages over the human race, they remain inferior to the human being. I was astonished that we haven't talked about this in class all that much, though we did touch on it a couple of times. But it was just super ironic-and frankly, unfair- that these two creatures ended up in the state that they did because they seemed to be better than us. I mean, what does that say about our society as a whole? That we reject those that are better than us and make them feel inferior, when they should be considered equal?

     You may think, "Victor's monster is gigantic. He kills people for a living. He is pure evil. How does this make him inferior?" Well, you'd be partly right...he is pretty large. But that's the only true statement you made! The rest of it is purely subjective, and is a product of years of movie reproductions that stray from the essence of the monster as depicted in the novel: an inexperienced, young, and abused character with physical deformities that render him dangerous, even though he isn't. Here's a better physical description of him, which the movie industry nailed quite well:

"His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes" (Shelley, 51).

Yeah, that doesn't sound too appealing. He looks like he can kill you with his bare hands (and he probably can). But did you know that he's a vegetarian throughout the whole book, which subtly hints at his deep respect towards living things? Did you know that he saved a little girl's life from drowning in the water, only to be shot at by her father for thinking that he was going to harm the life he had just saved? This "monster" is nothing more than an unfortunate creature that is defined by society based on his physical characteristics. By physical, he seems 100 times stronger than the normal man, twice as tall, and doubly menacing. This puts him quite above the normal human by physical standards. And yet, he is placed underneath the human; in fact, he isn't even considered human. When he was "conceived" (for lack of better term), he is treated like a dirty animal, like a rabid dog, even though he is completely coherent in language and has set morals for himself. Why didn't society accept him as one of their own?

     On to Dobby...in general, the house elves are treated like vermin, and they must (MUST) abide their master at all costs. They do everything from cleaning the house, to doing the laundry, to cooking-anything the master demands, the house elves must perform or they will be punished (usually by self mutilation). And be mindful, these house elves are barely 3 feet tall, and they are barely clothed; the only way to set a house elf free is to give him clothes, which he cannot provide for himself (symbolic of not being able to feel shame or provide the basic necessities for himself). Now, how does this fit in with the creature? What makes elves better than people? It isn't mentioned in the movies (isn't that a surprise), but house elves have within them an ancient magic that supersedes the magic that a normal human wizard can conjure. For instance, the ancient wizarding school Hogwarts is completely shut off from Apparition (teleportation, for you non-magic folk) and cannot appear on school grounds unless they want to be blown up. But can a house elf do so? Certainly. They can perform all their magic without the use of a wand, and this magic is powerful and deadly (but cannot be used unless the house elf is free-that is, without a master). Does this sound familiar to you at all? The subjugation of subjects in society that are far stronger than the normal human being?

     If the creature and Dobby meet in their version of literary heaven, they'd hit it off, I'm sure. Our poor treatment of these special beings, even though they may be more skilled than we are, in literary work suggests that the human society is too proud to let any other living thing be "better" than we are. And who are we to argue? Was there not a time where you hated someone because they were smarter than you, or that they performed better than you did? They earned more money than you, so they must not be good people! The neighbors got a new car, they must've gotten an under-the-table deal or something, they can't afford that! It happens all the time, and in order to make us feel better about ourselves, we put them in a level that seems beneath us, even though in actuality they aren't.

     And this brings up the final connection between the inferior-superior complex and the novel. Feminism. The two themes can go hand-in-hand, since feminism aims at destroying the idea of inferiority in women in the first place. The book is practically an outlook of what were to happen if man had the power to create life instead of woman, and this, as you all know, ended with the deaths of innocent people, a backslap to God, and many a broken dreams. In real life, women are still subordinate to men in many ways-occupational equality, household responsibilities, sex, you name it. For whatever thing there is that you need to do in life (driving, cooking, cleaning, etc), there's always a joke about a woman not being able to perform it as well as men (or that it is the responsibility of the woman, not the man, to perform it). And yet, women have strength in numbers on this earth--there are, literally, more women than men currently living, and it's always been that way. Women have the ability to create life and pass our genetic code onto the next generation; all we need is just one small tiny sperm cell. Can men say the same about themselves?

     It's the same pattern that happens over and over again with inferiority; it's the beings that are more than able, or are better able, than the rest of society that are subject to it. What better way to protect your status than to undermine the stronger class of beings, be it Dobby, the creature, or a woman? To make them feel like they're worth less than the human life, and to deny them equal rights, is the foolproof way to ensure your kind's continued success without being dethroned. And that was what made Frankenstein so great; it could explain all of this without even explicitly bringing it up.

INCEPTION IS FRANKENSTEIN. THIS IS THE REAL DEAL.

I know, you might think it's a stretch. You might even think it's crazy, but people, the connection is there! I was lollygagging the Lit assignment and watching Inception on Netflix--so, basically, I was watching Inception on Netflix--when that strange feeling of deja vu hit me. It was that uneasy twist in the stomach, a brain-flip, that nasty feeling when your heart is in your throat--I've heard of this story before. The story within a story, a recurring theme between all the characters, the implantation of an idea...little did I know that the answer to the strange sensation was lying askew, page forgotten, on the sofa.

Inception is Frankenstein.

The similarities between the two seemingly disparate stories are scarily accurate, with allusions and doubles of characters, plots, settings, you name it. Sure, you might have thought that Christopher Nolan was a genius director for making up a plot so brilliant, so dazzling, so fresh--but it's just like what that hotshot Thomas C. Foster said about stories, movies, paintings, art in general: it all stems from one story.

A whole story. 

And that, my friend, brings me to the point of this connection between Nolan and Shelley--or rather, the fact that Shelley came up with this beautifully complex idea first and Nolan borrowed it hundreds of years later.  Let's start with what Shelley was writing on about first. Of course, there are a variety of themes that play into the highly-acclaimed novel, Frankenstein, many of which do actually bleed into our society today and still cause controversy. The theme that I find most interesting, however, is the danger of technology and human advancement. What do I mean by that? 

Shelley introduces us with our first, but not main, character--Walton. He's an up-and-coming traveler and geographer, intent on finding a shortcut to the other side of the world by starting at a pretty ominous spot: Russia (this fact will be important later). Even from here we find the beginnings of a dangerous situation, right in the first sentence, when Walton exclaims in a letter to his sister, "You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings" (Shelley, 12). Um, hello? In addition to warning the reader that this Walton guy is heading into troubled waters (literally and figuratively), this pre-chapter also hints at the real main character's own problems when he decides it would be a good idea to create life out of inanimate objects. 

Who is this guy? None other than Victor Frankenstein, of course. And guess what? He has a doting sister that lives far away when he goes on his dangerous exploit, with only one method of contact: letters. Shelley succeeds, with the issuance of one single sentence, to create two layers in this book, which is more than I can say for other novels of this era. And then there's you, the reader. What if, at this very moment, while reading this book, I had just received a letter from a faraway cousin who was exploring the deep jungles of Africa, trying to find a magical herb that cures cancer? What are the chances that I, a caring and loving relative, would worry for his safety and return? The answer is pretty high, I love my cousin.

Ok, so the circumstances don't have to be that extreme. But even with risks in life that we, or others take, the story of Frankenstein becomes applicable. My cousin could risk his own life trying to find a cure for cancer, and even succeed--but where would that lead us? The advancement of technology in Shelley's imagination led to the ruin of all the Frankensteins by the very technology that Frankenstein created. If we cured cancer, what would happen? Happier families, sure, a safer planet, why not--but what about increased healthcare costs across the board? Overpopulation? Pollution? Margaret, Elizabeth, and I would all agree that these are pretty foreboding. With this in mind, Shelley doesn't create just two, but three layers if you count the reader. Mary Shelley is inception-ing you at least two times, to get her message across; sometimes human advancement is bad for us. It's like that horrible line in the fifth Harry Potter movie from the equally horrible Professor Umbridge: "Progress, for the sake of progress, must be inhibited!" Yeah, I shivered when I read that, too. 

So, the basic story that Victor has to live through is that he creates this monster of a human being in the hopes of bettering the human society, spends half of his life running away from it, queue the POV change to the monster for a bit to hear him lament, come back to Victor when he loses everything, and finally Victor hit up with Walton when he tries and fails to find and kill his creation in the desolate, icy waters of Russia. Now, from Victor's point of view, he definitely failed in his goal; he couldn't kill his monster, he dies of exhaustion, and our protagonist loses the battle. In reality, Shelley's the real winner, for her point comes across quite clear for both Victor and Walton: technology that's ahead of our time is dangerous and should be stopped, or at least hindered, until the right time comes. Victor died never knowing what actually happened afterwards, but the monster stated that he would end his own life in front of Watson, and Victor's sob story (and the angered crew-mates on the ship that were freezing to death) convinced him to turn around and end his journey. Advancement has stopped. 

Now let's look at Inception. The main character, Cobb, creates a type of technology that can enter dreams and, therefore, subconsciously implant ideas in your head. Good source of revenue for Cobb, except for a small problem--Cobb creates a monster within the system that threatens his life and the lives of his team whenever he enters inception. That monster is Mal, his deceased wife. Throughout the whole movie, they go deeper and deeper into a rich man's mind to make him change his dad's company and destroy it, but the deeper they go, the more havoc Mal causes. In other words, half of the movie involves Cobb running away from his ghost of a wife until the very last level, which is in--you guessed it--snowy, cold, desolate, Russia. It is here that two very critical things happen: Cobb successfully implants the idea of shutting down the company (to stop global monopoly), and he also seems to have shot and killed his monster wife. 

But did he?

In the final scene of the movie, Cobb's team members slowly move away from him, one by one, leaving him all alone at an airport. He comes back to America (which he was banished from for being wrongfully accused of killing his wife, who actually committed suicide) to see his smiling kids and they all seem to live happily ever after, except that the ending gives the audience the final, unanswerable question: is Cobb still in a dream? Is he alive, or is he still sleeping? This is such a strong parallel to Victor, who died not knowing what was ever going to happen to his creation (even though it did say it was gonna kill itself, it isn't elaborated in the book). In Inception, Mal believed that she had to kill herself to 'wake up', and when we watch the movie, we begin to wonder who really is in reality: Cobb or Mal? In a way, Cobb will never know if he did the right thing or not, because he doesn't even know if he's awake! In the end, if he is indeed is in a dream (which a majority of viewers seem to think so), then the single holder of inception is stuck in dreamspace forever. No one else will be able to use this technology for any reason, good or bad.

Advancement has stopped.

What is Inception then? Still a brilliant movie, of course. Beautiful scenery. Great effects. To add to that list: best representation of Frankenstein. Sorry I went over my word count...there had to be some way to get this out of my head.

SOURCE:
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Karen Karbiener. Frankenstein. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003. Print.