23 pages 46 minutes read

Denis Johnson

Emergency

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1991

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

Fuckhead

Fuckhead, the narrator of “Emergency,” is an aimless young man who uses illicit substances in a 1970s, unnamed Midwestern town. He spends his days working a meaningless night job at a hospital and getting high with his orderly friend, Georgie. Fuckhead has an acute sense of his world, and his story has a surreal quality punctuated by gritty details. He observes the absurdity of his situation and relays it with deadpan humor.

Fuckhead seeks meaning and joy in his life, although it is unclear whether he believes he deserves those things. When Georgie asks him if “everything [Fuckhead] touch[es] turn[s] to shit” (69), all he can reply is, “No wonder they call me Fuckhead” (69). Despite this tone of resignation, Fuckhead notices and yearns for beauty and any experience that can shake him out of the despair of his existence. He finds something like it at the end of the story when he and Georgie wake up in the truck after a bender, and Fuckhead experiences “the beauty of the morning” (69).

Georgie

Fuckhead’s friend Georgie is an orderly at the hospital and the procurer of their drugs. Fuckhead tells the reader that Georgie was “a pretty good friend of mine” (57), and throughout the story, the two share a certain degree of intimacy and honesty, despite their altered mental state; Georgie calls Fuckhead out on his inability to do anything right and warns him that this will “ride [him] to [his] grave” (69).

Related Titles

By Denis Johnson

Study Guide

logo

Jesus' Son

Denis Johnson

Jesus' Son

Denis Johnson

Plot Summary

logo

Train Dreams

Denis Johnson

Train Dreams

Denis Johnson

Plot Summary

logo

Tree of Smoke

Denis Johnson

Tree of Smoke

Denis Johnson