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Caleb Porter
An orthopedic surgeon, Andy Contractor is Jude’s longtime doctor and friend. Andy is the only doctor Jude trusts to examine him. Other than Willem, Andy is the only person who has seen Jude’s unclothed body since his he was 15 years old. Over the years, Andy sees Jude through many physical and psychological struggles, from instances of self-harm, to physical wounds others inflict on Jude, to Jude’s worsening mental health. Jude likes Andy because, unlike other people in Jude’s life, Andy regards Jude’s physical condition realistically—he’s the first person to tell Jude that Jude’s injuries will never heal (and will in fact get worse as Jude ages), and he never sugarcoats Jude’s situation. It’s Andy who eventually tells Jude that amputation is Jude’s only real option if Jude doesn’t want to risk contracting a potentially lethal infection. Andy wants to do well by Jude—he’s Jude’s doctor and Jude’s friend, so he has professional and personal reasons to want to see Jude get better. As a result, Andy often gives Jude frustrating ultimatums, such as threatening to have Jude committed if Jude doesn’t stop his self-harm. But Andy’s efforts to “fix” Jude assume that total healing is possible, and this contradicts the novel’s central thesis that some wounds are too deep to heal, and that it’s impossible to eradicate all suffering. Toward the end of Jude’s life, Andy struggles to reconcile his ethical belief that he has a responsibility to help fix Jude and keep him alive with his personal obligation to honor Jude’s decision to make choices about when and why his life is no longer worth living. In the novel’s closing section, Harold reveals that Andy dies of a heart attack several years after Jude’s suicide.
Andy Contractor Quotes in A Little Life
The A Little Life quotes below are all either spoken by Andy Contractor or refer to Andy Contractor. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 5: The Happy Years: Chapter 1
Quotes
“Willem’s not a health-care professional,” he remembered Andy saying. “He’s an actor.” And although both he and Jude had laughed at the time, he wasn’t sure Andy was wrong. Who was he to try to direct Jude’s mental health?
“Don’t trust me so much,” he wanted to say to Jude. But how could he? Wasn’t this what he had wanted from Jude, from this relationship? To be so indispensable to another person that that person couldn’t even comprehend his life without him? And now he had it, and the demands of the position terrified him. He had asked for responsibility without understanding completely how much damage he could do.
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Part 5: The Happy Years: Chapter 2
Quotes
“I’m not Hemming, Willem,” Jude hisses at him. “I’m not going to be the cripple you get to save for the one you couldn’t.”
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Part 6: Dear Comrade: Chapter 3
Quotes
Finally he lifts his head and sees Harold staring at him, sees that Harold is actually crying, silently, looking and looking at him. “Harold,” he says, although Andy is still talking, “release me. Release me from my promise to you. Don’t make me do this anymore. Don’t make me go on.”
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Get the entire A Little Life LitChart as a printable PDF.
Andy Contractor Quotes in A Little Life
The A Little Life quotes below are all either spoken by Andy Contractor or refer to Andy Contractor. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 5: The Happy Years: Chapter 1
Quotes
“Willem’s not a health-care professional,” he remembered Andy saying. “He’s an actor.” And although both he and Jude had laughed at the time, he wasn’t sure Andy was wrong. Who was he to try to direct Jude’s mental health?
“Don’t trust me so much,” he wanted to say to Jude. But how could he? Wasn’t this what he had wanted from Jude, from this relationship? To be so indispensable to another person that that person couldn’t even comprehend his life without him? And now he had it, and the demands of the position terrified him. He had asked for responsibility without understanding completely how much damage he could do.
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Part 5: The Happy Years: Chapter 2
Quotes
“I’m not Hemming, Willem,” Jude hisses at him. “I’m not going to be the cripple you get to save for the one you couldn’t.”
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Part 6: Dear Comrade: Chapter 3
Quotes
Finally he lifts his head and sees Harold staring at him, sees that Harold is actually crying, silently, looking and looking at him. “Harold,” he says, although Andy is still talking, “release me. Release me from my promise to you. Don’t make me do this anymore. Don’t make me go on.”
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