Physician, Kill Thyself - Page 2

Glas is in love with Helga, and lives vicariously through her lover, whose name rhymes with his own, but of whom he is only a pale reflection. Glas is a nothing man, a man who wants but cannot act, a Swedish J. Alfred Prufrock whose unheeded desires have long begun to fester and poison his soul. Spiritually, he's like one of those thin figures by Giocometti, a man whose dashed hopes have withered him down to a wiry hardness. He wants to be a poet but believes he has no sense or vision, "no eyes of my own"; actually, he is something of an artist of his own life, as he closely observes the subtle signals in slight movements — how people react, how to avoid reaction, how not to get involved, what not to say. He has mastered the psychology of everyday life for his own ends, and it has diminished him: "It seems to me I am the shadow who wished to be a man." He sees himself as a character in a dull play, pushed to the side, watching life as it goes by and hating it; watching it through a glass. He dwells on the outside and the inside, wanting both "the pathos of action and the peace of the on-looker," and finding solace in neither. Suicide is a constant temptation; he has even taken the trouble of making cyanide pills, which he keeps at the ready. Even greater is the temptation to use the pills to kill Gregorius on his return, freeing forever the life of the woman he loves. His own life has always been tortured by dreams of wanting. Now they become nightmares of getting, of killing Gregorius, taking Helga in his arms and being pursued by Klas.

Life, which has always given him perfectly good reasons not to follow his heart, now throws down a challenge. "Life, I do not understand you!" he retorts, and Helga's marriage is a perfect example of why: her only joy in life is considered a sin, while nightly rape by her husband is upheld by law. As Glas talks himself into and out of killing Gregorius, the notion of morality itself becomes suspect: why is killing a man like Gregorius wrong? Why shouldn't Helga be free? I won't give away how he resolves this crisis, but it gives away nothing to say it goes badly, and that it only deepens his misanthropy and self-contempt. The world Glas sees is a hypocritical parade of masks where he is as guilty as anyone, and the only one remotely concerned. Night and day come to reflect his inner and outer selves; one makes him feel lonely and insignificant, the other sheds light on everything he doesn't want to face. The sun, as one friend says to him, is like the truth: "its value depends on our being a correct distance away from it." Life is best lived by not facing the horror of it; "Thought is an acid, eating us away." To be happy is to inoculate yourself from the tragedy. Over the summer and fall that take up the book, Glas is constantly aware of the change of seasons and the passing of time. In the final pages, he yearns for the approach of winter, of snow blotting out light.

Article Author:

We currently have no author bio information for .

Visit 's author page