Dr._Heidegger's_Experiment_Response

The piece, Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in 1837. It is an allegory about how three old, wasted individuals receive a chance to become youthful again. They temporarily turn back time to enjoy their lively youth, only to realize that the time reverses back again to their aged, wrinkled selves. The characters in the short-lived respite from their old age are devastated by the transience of the experience. Dr. Heidegger’s advice to appreciate the advantage of age and to avoid foolishness is ignored, and the participants learn no new lesson. Instead, they resolve to make a pilgrimage to Florida to seek the water of the Fountain of Youth. Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment promotes the idea of delusion in the sense that the characters do not realize their foolishness in their time of youth. They are simply repeating their “history” again as they become young again, which gives them another chance to indulge and enjoy the ferment of youth. Dr. Heidegger, however, is the watchful eye and advises them to be careful and to use their youth wisely, but he simply receives a feeble chuckle and no words from these three characters. This situation could be related back to religion. Firstly, Dr. Heidegger’s wisdom and advice is not taken into consideration, as if the three other characters are well and wise enough to deal with the situation. They do not understand Dr. Heidegger’s “power”. In Hinduism, it is said in the Holy Bhagavad-Gita by the Lord Himself: “Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature and My supreme dominion over all that be” (Ch. 9.11). In a way, Dr. Heidegger acts as the higher figure, while the three others are the fools. In the end, the three others end up making a mess of the situation, shattering the container containing the water, and turn back to their old, aged selves, only to have Dr. Heidegger tell them that he warned them, and there should be a lesson learned (although they learned no lesson). Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment also hints at how reversing time could act as “purifying” the self in the sense that man is given another chance to amend his wrongdoings. However, in the Bhagavad-Gita, the Lord says: “In this world, there is nothing that exists as purifying, in comparison with transcendental knowledge. One perfected by the science of uniting the individual consciousness with the Ultimate Consciousness automatically attains that knowledge in the self in course of time” (Ch 4.38). This is telling us that the characters cannot expect themselves to relive their youth and happiness and to “purify” themselves again. In fact, they should have done so earlier in their lives, and over time would they only be good people in the end.