30 pages 1 hour read

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dr. Heidegger's Experiment

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1837

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Character Analysis

The Narrator

Although the narrator gives little information about himself, he functions as a character in his own right. As the storyteller, the narrator draws attention to himself at several points. For example, in the opening paragraph, the narrator addresses the reader as an “I” who speaks, saying, “I will merely hint, that Dr. Heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves.” The narrator also says, in the same paragraph, that “[i]t is a circumstance worth mentioning” that the three old men were once lovers of the Widow Wycherly and had “once been on the point of cutting each other’s throats for her sake” (13). In this case, the narrator foreshadows the climactic scene of the story, when that very scenario repeats itself.

The narrator often takes a playful attitude toward parts of the tale that touch on the supernatural or pertain to the “thousand fantastic stories” that have been told about Dr. Heidegger. In this context, the narrator states, “Some of these fables [about Dr. Heidegger], to my shame be it spoken, might possibly be traced back to my own veracious self” (16). By referring to himself ironically as “veracious” yet as the origin of admittedly “fantastic” stories, the narrator situates the events told in this tale in an ambiguous realm—maybe they are fiction and maybe they are reality.

Related Titles

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

Ethan Brand

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ethan Brand

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

My Kinsman Major Molineux

Nathaniel Hawthorne

My Kinsman Major Molineux

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The Ambitious Guest

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Ambitious Guest

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The Artist of the Beautiful

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Artist of the Beautiful

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The Blithedale Romance

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Blithedale Romance

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The Hollow of the Three Hills

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Hollow of the Three Hills

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The House of the Seven Gables

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The House of the Seven Gables

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The Marble Faun

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Marble Faun

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The Maypole Of Merry Mount

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Maypole Of Merry Mount

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The Minister's Black Veil

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Minister's Black Veil

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

The Wives of the Dead

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Wives of the Dead

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Study Guide

logo

Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne