Michael K discussion 2
Why is the doctor so obsessed with Michael? What does he want from him? What does he learn?
posted by Randy Barnett @ 1:23 PM
Why is the doctor so obsessed with Michael? What does he want from him? What does he learn?
posted by Randy Barnett @ 1:23 PM
4 Comments:
It is common for people to wish for what is ultimately not possible. In this situation, the doctor feels the need to conform Michael K and what in the end fascinates the doctor is his own inability to do so. Michael K, having lived his entire life apart from society, ridiculed by society, rejected by society, mistreated by society, even his own mother, whom he may consider to be the reflection of society, has no psychological pull towards submission to social norms and this is precisely what causes the doctor to obsess over him. Michael K has formed unique connections with his gardens and nature in general allowing him to be different and stand apart from everyone else; he is special unlike anyone else. The doctor is the first person to see Michael K in a different light—a light that the doctor considers to be the only true light. The doctor feels that he has the ability to recognize the remarkable and exceptional beauty that Michael K possesses and as Kent mentioned, the doctor feels it unfortunate that Michael K was born in a time when “uniqueness” was rejected by the “normal individuals” of the world.
I agree with David, that a big part of the doctor's interest in Michael comes from K's ignorance of the war. The doctor is amazed that an individual could be so oblivious to his surroundings. With time, the doctor begins to view Michael's resistance to eating as a clever form of protest. He sees K as having broken the circle of institutionalization, hospitalization, feeding, and more confinment. Later on, however, the doctor believes that K actually genuinely wanted to eat and comply with orders. He takes K's exercising to the point of exhaustion as proof of his theory, and arrives at the conclusion that Michael's body actually cannot accept the food he is giving it. Having arrived at this conclusion, the doctor realizes how unique K really is, and becomes more and more attached to him, wanting to know K's story.
The doctor is interested in K because he's curious. For those of us that don't want to die it may be hard to understand why one wouldn't do all that they could to survive, especially when they supposedly had a garden of pumpkins to eat. The doctors curiosity is sparked from K's lack of interest in life. What has happened to him in the past that makes living so unimportant? He wants to know K's story and feed his curiosity.
The doctor becomes interested in K for the same reason the reader is: K does not fit into society. While we say that childhoods vary greatly from person to person, most people reach adulthood with the same or a similar set of social norms that they follow (like Jazzy said, a major one being the instinct for survival). We are conditioned since birth to value life and do our utmost to survive, but K seems to not have that instinct. He doesn't eat when he could or go where he should. He has no purpose. For this reason, he is of an understandable interest to the doctor, who is really the first person to realize how extraordinary a case K is.
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