Το Σώμα στη Σύγχρονη Αμερικανική Λογοτεχνία

A person who is vivid

Nothing, it has no special symbolism

A living person who must bear life

A living person who is unbearable

That overeducated people need to be less haughty

That both body and mind should not neglect the spirit (connectedness with others)

That we are all “ashes to ashes and dust to dust”

That all people change as they get older and wiser.

Parallels Vivian’s and Kelekian’s monolithic approaches to their own subjects

Suggests the dark and deadened quality of his character

Is characteristic of all medical practitioners, more or less

Suggests a kind of fear of real life, like when he can’t talk to Suzanne

Ashford was a far more prolific scholar than Vivian ever was

Ashford knew more about Donne’s editions than Vivian

Ashford connected with other human beings as bodies

Ashford always gave her students second chances

Susie is not an intellectual, therefore she does not antagonize her authority

Susie has no respect for intellectuals like Jason or Kelikian

Susie respects her patients as people whose civic rights are abused by doctors

Susie respects her patients as suffering bodies and scared souls

Vivian in her last moments becomes like a small child

Life is full of ironies: a great professor ending like a simpleton

Ashford’s great-grandson will grow up to become a professor like Vivian

Stories last longer than humans

The spirit of John Donne

Vivian’s mother substitute and the angel of death

An ironic reminder of all Vivian has lost

An image of the great teacher that Vivian could have been if she had lived on

That she had sold her soul to the Devil but was cheated on the deal

That Donne was also a suffering human being, didn’t just write with his mind

That her students hated her for her obsession, which made her a strict teacher

That ultimately nothing she or Donne or any wit wrote really mattered

Calling code blue when the patient was DNR

Making Susie, who is so nice, angry at him

The way he has not respected his patients

The fact that he has failed to find a cure before the patient died