Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Inherently Flawed Nature of Humanity

The groom demonstrates the sinfulness of humans and the impossibility of conquering it. The groom is a representation of the doctor’s lust for women in general and Rosa specifically. The symbolism is clear from the beginning as the groom emerges from a pigsty, representative of the place within each person where their animal nature resides. The groom crawls out like an animal and claims kinship with the horses, illuminating his flawed and bestial nature. When he bites Rosa, the groom demonstrates a violent lustfulness. The doctor acknowledges this when he hears the groom breaking down the door and smashing apart the doctor’s house to get to Rosa. The destruction of the house represents the tearing apart of any illusions the doctor has of who people truly are. The doctor’s unwillingness to confront the groom shows that he understands the futility of trying to eradicate something that is inherent in humans. Instead, the doctor accepts the groom’s nature and actions as inevitable and continues on about his business. 

The patient’s festering wound further demonstrates the idea that humans are inherently flawed. Just as people can seem unmarred by sin upon first inspection, the doctor finds the patient to be healthy when he first arrives. When he sees his wound, however, the doctor concludes there is nothing he can do for the patient. Such an infection, the doctor concludes, is fatal, indicating that there is nothing that can be done to eradicate a part of a person that is inherent. Calling the wound a flower harkens back to Rosa and the groom’s brutality toward her. Both the wound and Rosa are evidence of the sickness that is a part of every human. The patient acknowledges that he was born with his wound, indicating that it is an immutable part of humanity. The fact that the doctor flees the sick room rather than making any effort to try to cure the patient of his wound shows how the doctor understands there is no remedy for that which is a part of human nature.

The Fragility of Faith 

The doctor has lost faith in his ability to make a difference in the lives of his patients. When he first arrives at the home of his patient, he believes he’s been called out in the middle of the night for nothing, showing how cynical and jaded he’s become. Despite his patient’s plea to let him die, the doctor assumes he’s being duped and reacts by pulling out and then putting away a pair of tweezers as a show of doing something. The tiny tool symbolizes how he’s lost faith in his own ability to do anything since it’s a useless instrument. Later, while lying in bed with the patient, it’s implied that the man’s statements are the inner fears of the doctor himself. The patient says he has no confidence in the doctor and that he came to his sickbed only out of obligation and not from any true desire to be useful. This exchange reveals the doctor’s complete lack of faith in his ability to do anything meaningful or helpful.

The community also loses faith in the doctor. At first, the patient and his parents are trusting. However, when the doctor does not do anything, the family’s faith begins to wane. Townspeople come and reveal that they consider the doctor to be expendable if he does not do his job. Particularly, when the doctor is stripped of his clothes and his humanity and forced to lie next to the patient, the man says he does not trust the doctor and doesn’t believe he can do anything for him. The man has lost faith in the doctor. He accuses the doctor of lying to him and, although he is somewhat reassured, the doctor uses the opportunity to flee the sickroom which serves to reinforce all the patient’s fears. In the end, the doctor acknowledges that everyone has lost faith in him and that he will lose his livelihood as a result. 

The Inevitability of Aging

The doctor’s exterior conflicts illuminate the futility inherent in trying to fight against one’s own mortality. The setting itself serves as a symbol of the doctor’s stage in life. It is winter, representing the last season of the life cycle. The doctor is helpless against the bitter cold just as all humans are helpless against death. His nakedness at the end is indicative of how vulnerable he is in the face of his own mortality. It is also symbolic of how humans come into and go out of their lives. The doctor’s other external conflicts with the townspeople also serve to demonstrate the inevitability of death. Their willingness to discard and replace him if he does not perform his duties show with what callousness life moves. The patient and townspeople reveal the doctor to be old and replaceable. For the doctor, that means losing his practice and being replaced by a new, younger doctor.

The doctor’s internal conflicts also suggest the inexorable nature of mortality. He battles to reconcile his desire to be helpful with the knowledge that he is essentially impotent. He cannot help Rosa and does not even try. He assumes the patient is fine even though the man asks the doctor to let him die. Later, he refuses to try to help the man when confronted with his wound. In the end, he is bitterly cold and distraught at the idea of never making it home, yet he does not even try to dress himself and fight against the winter. All of his inner struggles reveal how ineffectual he is against the certainty of his own death. No one, neither doctor nor patient, is safe from the constant presence of mortality. In the end, the doctor knows he will never be able to turn back time and return to his former state. Instead, he acknowledges that he must continue the literal and figurative journey to his own death.