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Human beings, despite their flaws, merit sympathy.
Johnson presents each of the story’s characters—the narrator, Georgie, the Family Services doctor, Nurse, and Hardee—without condemning any of them. Each of these characters is flawed, yet their flaws humanize them, making them both realistic and deserving of sympathy.
Georgie steals drugs from the hospital, the narrator steals drugs from Georgie, and both work while under the drugs’ influence. Despite appearing aimless and wandering through life in a drug-induced haze, the narrator sees beauty in the world. Georgie, despite his theft and drug use, displays kindness and generosity. Readers feel sympathy for him when drugs lead to his horrific hallucinations.
The staff harbors disdain for the Family Services doctor and he speaks condescendingly to Georgie. However, readers can still pity him for his fears of humiliation over his limited competence. Nurse seems to enjoy making the Family Services doctor uncomfortable and ignores Georgie’s drug use, despite the risk it might pose to patients. Yet, readers sympathize with her when they realize that her primary concern lies with her family’s welfare.
While society may view each of these characters unfavorably, given their flaws, Johnson invites readers to recognize the humanity underlying those flaws. Readers are challenged to look at the flawed individuals at society’s fringes, to recognize their complexity and humanity, and to refrain from judging them harshly.
Turbulent times and experiences have a catastrophic impact on individuals.
The story takes place in the summer of 1973, a period marked by significant societal upheaval. In 1973, the Vietnam War, which had deeply divided the nation, was drawing to its close. Returning soldiers, both physically and emotionally wounded, faced challenges reintegrating into a society that sometimes showed indifference or hostility toward them. Additionally, the Supreme Court’s decision in the highly controversial Roe vs. Wade case added to social conflict. The Watergate scandal intensified during this period, while the economy entered a prolonged period of stagnation. Alongside these developments, there was a noticeable decline in young people’s adherence to traditional beliefs in religion, patriotism, and societal norms. This disillusionment often led to increased drug use as a means of coping with the societal chaos and anxiety of the era.
The narrator and Georgie exemplify the youthful reaction to turbulent times. They take drugs to escape both the trauma and the tedium of the hospital. Their reaction to Mr. Weber’s injury shows how drugs have numbed their minds to trauma. And yet, the drugs sometimes exacerbate the trauma, for example, when Georgie hallucinates “a lot of blood” on the clean emergency room floor.
The narrator and Georgie continue to take drugs outside of work, revealing broader societal anxieties. Despite enjoying a peaceful afternoon drive, the narrator still experiences unsettling visions, including the return of the dead and a sense of sadness at the county fair. Further evidence of drug use appears at the fair, where a leader of the counterculture advocates LSD use. Johnson situates this man next to the poultry cages, as if to insinuate that drug use is as ordinary as 4H membership. The narrator’s unease about the Vietnam War surfaces when he hallucinates a military graveyard with rows of austere markers over soldiers’ graves. Additionally, the two men become lost in an unseasonal nighttime snowstorm, symbolizing their emotional drift, confusion, and sense of having become overwhelmed.
Memory can be unreliable, but people remember what matters.
Memory plays an important role in how the narrator tells his story, drawing attention to its significance, while relegating other aspects to irrelevance. He starts by saying that he “had been working in the emergency room for about three weeks, I guess” (emphasis added). Immediately, readers have reason to wonder if he is reliable. Some details, it seems, are hazy, either because of the passage of time, the narrator’s drug use, or both. The narrator explains that exhaustion and drugs can affect memory. He says, “[a]fter a while you forget it’s summer. You don’t remember what the morning is.”
The narrator and Georgie’s memory lapses can be dangerous. They forget the bunnies, resulting in their deaths. Later, the narrator tells readers that he is unsure whether the incident with the dead bunnies happened the same night that he and Georgie wandered lost in the snowstorm. However, the narrator reassures readers that the chronology “doesn’t matter.” More important than those details is the beautiful scene he awakens to that morning, where a bull elk and a coyote roam through a snow-covered pasture.
The narrator’s poor memory causes him trouble with keeping the narrative in chronological order. He flashes back to the incident with the hitchhiker after seemingly finishing the story. More important than the chronology is the memory of what Georgie said during that incident. He said “I save lives,” which explains the difference between the two friends. Georgie feels as if he saves lives, while the narrator feels as if he ruins everything he touches. While the narrator’s memory may seem faulty, he recalls the things that matter most to him.
