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| An Experiment with an Air Pump analysis |
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An Experiment with an Air Pump analysis, ethical limits of scientific research, dual time frame in drama, Shelagh Stephenson play themes, science and morality in literature
How does Shelagh Stephenson use the dual time frame of An Experiment with an Air Pump to explore the ethical limits of scientific research?
Answer:
Shelagh Stephenson’s An Experiment with an Air Pump is a play structured around a bold formal device: two parallel narratives set exactly two hundred years apart (1799 and 1999) in the same house, with the same actors playing different characters. This dual time frame in drama is not a mere theatrical gimmick. It is the central mechanism through which Stephenson explores her abiding question: what are the ethical limits of scientific research, and have we made any progress in two centuries?
The 1799 narrative presents the birth of modern science. Dr. Joseph Fenwick, a gentleman philosopher inspired by the Lunar Society, demonstrates an air pump – a device that removes air from a glass vessel – on his daughter’s pet bird. The experiment is controlled; the bird is saved by the compassionate intervention of the young Roget. But the shadow of Robert Boyle’s original experiments – which killed living creatures – hangs over the scene. More troubling is the conversation between Roget and Armstrong about obtaining cadavers for dissection. Armstrong boasts of grave robbing and even of identifying potential corpses before they are dead. “The ends justify the means,” he argues. “Morality kills science.” Armstrong is willing to sacrifice the vulnerable – the poor, the unclaimed dead – for the sake of anatomical knowledge.
The 1999 narrative directly parallels these ethical dilemmas. Ellen, a geneticist, is offered a job at a biotech company working on prenatal genetic testing. Her husband Tom objects on moral grounds (he believes life begins at conception). Her former student Kate, now a corporate recruiter, dismisses the pre‑embryos as “a cluster of cells”. The question is whether it is ethical to abort foetuses with genetic abnormalities – and, more broadly, whether science should be in the business of “eradicating” conditions like manic depression, which Phil’s beloved uncle Stan had.
The dual time frame allows Stephenson to show that the same arguments recur across centuries. In 1799, Armstrong says “the ends justify the means”; in 1999, Kate says “it’s a cluster of cells” – the same instrumental reasoning, different vocabulary. Roget’s horror at grave robbing is echoed by Phil’s horror at the prospect of aborting “people like my uncle Stan”. The play suggests that science and morality in literature often collide: scientific ambition, untempered by compassion, repeats its mistakes.
But the dual time frame also reveals what has changed – and what has not. In 1799, women are excluded from science. Susannah is ignored; Harriet is mocked for wanting to be a physician. In 1999, the scientists are women: Ellen and Kate. On the surface, this is progress. Yet Ellen is no less ethically conflicted than Fenwick; Kate is no less cold than Armstrong. The structures of power have shifted, but the human temptation to sacrifice the vulnerable for knowledge remains.
The play’s most devastating use of the dual time frame is the character of Isobel Bridie – the Scottish servant with a spinal deformity. In 1799, she is seduced by Armstrong, who wants only to study her hump. When she discovers the truth, she hangs herself. In 1999, the box of bones found under the floorboards is revealed to be Isobel’s remains – missing bones, presumably removed for study. The 1999 characters argue about what to do with them; Tom wants to honour them spiritually, Phil lights a candle, but Ellen is impatient: “She’s dead.” The parallel is clear: the vulnerable body is sacrificed in both centuries. The air pump’s victim (the bird) is replaced by Isobel in the final tableau. Nothing has changed.
Stephenson refuses easy answers. Ellen accepts the job – but the play does not tell us whether she is right. What the play insists on is that the question be asked. Silence is complicity. The dual time frame is the formal expression of this insistence: we cannot look at 1999 without seeing 1799’s shadows. The past is in the bones under the floorboards. And until we acknowledge it, we will keep making the same mistakes.
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