Throughout An Experiment with an Air Pump, many characters harbor idealized views that don’t necessarily cohere with reality. In 1999, Kate is an idealistic young scientist whose company is interested in working with Ellen, a veteran scientist who has made groundbreaking advancements in the field of genetics; Kate’s company wants to work with Ellen to make Ellen’s work on the Human Genome Project available to the masses. Kate believes that the Human Genome Project, whose goal is to map the human gene system, would be undeniably good for society. Mapping the human gene system would allow for scientists to detect gene abnormalities that cause serious diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia—diseases that can impose extreme suffering onto those afflicted by the disease as well as those who care for them. Thus, Kate believes that using gene mapping to identify, target, and rid society of horrific illnesses would decrease human suffering and drastically improve the quality of life for all of humankind. Characters like Phil and Tom, meanwhile, believe that Kate’s view is overly—and even dangerously—idealistic. To them, Kate’s idealistic support for the Human Genome Project lacks nuance and ignores the many ethical concerns that gene editing presents. Tom, for instance, fears that expectant parents wanting to ensure the health of their baby won’t be the only ones who take an interest in gene mapping—he thinks it’s inevitable that private health insurance companies, lenders, and employers will use genetics to discriminate against people they consider to be genetically inferior.
Blind idealism affects characters in the play’s 1799 story line, as well; Fenwick’s unwavering support for democracy causes him to minimize the violence caused by periods of radical sociopolitical change like the French Revolution. Meanwhile, his embrace of ideals repeatedly interferes with his ability to connect with and support his family. Furthermore, Fenwick’s status as an esteemed scientist and renowned philanthropist tends to overshadow his less admirable qualities, such as his disrespect for his wife, Susannah, and his refusal to make time for Susannah and for their daughters, Maria and Harriet. The play thus suggests that while idealism can drive people to accomplish great things, it often creates a sort of tunnel vision that causes people to ignore other important—but perhaps less interesting—problems. This, in turn, complicates their ability to solve immediate, pressing dilemmas. Not only this, but unquestioned idealism can also create new problems while exacerbating existing ones.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Ideal vs. Lived Experience ThemeTracker
The Ideal vs. Lived Experience Quotes in An Experiment with an Air Pump
I’ve loved this painting since I was thirteen years old. I’ve loved it because it has a scientist at the heart of it, a scientist where you usually find God. Here, centre stage, is not a saint or an archangel, but a man. Look at his face, bathed in celestial light, here is a man beatified by his search for truth. As a child enraptured by the possibilities of science, this painting set my heart racing, it made the blood tingle in my veins: I wanted to be this scientist; I wanted to be up there in the thick of it, all eyes drawn to me, frontiers tumbling before my merciless deconstruction. […] I wanted to be God.
But when I was thirteen, what held me more than anything, was the drama at the centre of it all, the clouds scudding across a stage-set moon, the candle-light dipping and flickering. Who would not want to be caught up in this world? Who could resist the power of light over darkness?
Armstrong: This goes to prove the point I made earlier, sir: Keep infants away from the fireplace and women away from science.
Armstrong: With respect, I think you confuse a personal antipathy towards Reverend Jessop with the quality of his proposed lecture.
But does an idyll have its basis in reality?
Harriet: Primarily because you’re playing a sheep. And besides, some people are not meant to say anything of consequence. As in life, so in a play. Certain rules must be obeyed. And one of them is you stick to your own lines. You can’t swap them round as it takes your fancy. Think of the chaos. Think of the audience.
Ellen: The fact that you’ve never had a moral qualm in your life doesn’t mean you have superior reasoning power, it just means you have a limited imagination.
Kate: We’ll be able to pinpoint genes for particular types of cancer, for neurological disorders, for all sorts of things, some of them benign, some of them not, but what it really means is we’ll understand the shape and complexity of a human being, we’ll be able to say this is a man, this is exactly who he is, this is his potential, these are his possible limitations. And manic depression is genetic. We’ll pin it down soon.
Phil: And then what? No more Uncle Stans.
Fenwick: By the end of the nineteenth century everyone will understand how the world works. By the end of the following century, if you can imagine that far, every man or woman in the street will understand more than we can ever dream of. Electricity, the stars, the composition of the blood, complexities beyond our imagination, will be as easily understood as the alphabet. Magic and superstition won’t come into it. And it stands to reason, any citizen with the facts at his disposal could not tolerate a monarchical system unless he was mentally impaired or wilfully resistant to reality.
Roget: Does good science require a warm heart?
Fenwick: I like to think so, Roget. In fact I suspect pure objectivity is an arrogant fallacy. When we conduct an experiment we bring to bear on it all our human frailties, and all our prejudices, much as we might wish it to be otherwise. I like to think that good science requires us to utilise every aspect of ourselves in pursuit of truth. And sometimes the heart comes into it.
Isobel: I’m unused to answering questions. When I talk about myself my face feels hot. When I talk about myself I feel that I am lying.
Armstrong: Are you?
Isobel: I’m not sure. I try not to. But we all lie about ourselves.
Armstrong: Do we?
Isobel: We don’t mean to but we do.
Maria: Papa, Edward thinks my eyes are blue, he said so in a letter, and Harriet says this is because he’s a complete fool and that she never liked him anyway, but I think, perhaps he has a tropical fever and his mind is wandering or perhaps he meant brown but wrote blue –
Harriet: The future’s ours, these chimneys belch out hope,
These furnaces forge dreams as well as wealth.
Great minds conspire to cast an Eden here
From Iron, and steam bends nature to our will –
Armstrong: Digging up corpses is necessary if we’re to totter out of the Dark Ages. You can dissect a stolen body with moral qualms or with none at all and it won’t make a blind bit of difference to what you discover. Discovery is neutral. Ethics should be left to philosophers and priests. I’ve never had a moral qualm in my life, and it would be death to science if I did. That’s why I’ll be remembered as a great physician, Roget, and you’ll be forgotten as a man who made lists.
Susannah: I am full of feeling and passion and I am wedded to a dried cod.
Tom: The heart retains information, they don’t understand how, yet, but everything’s connected one way or another, nothing exists in isolation. When you feel grief, your heart hurts. When you feel love, it’s your heart that hurts, not your brain. You took this job because your heart told you to.
Fenwick: Here’s to whatever lies ahead … here’s to uncharted lands … here’s to a future we dream about but cannot know … here’s to the new century.
