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Prologue
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in An Experiment with an Air Pump, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Science and Morality
Human Industry and the Limitations of Knowledge
The Ideal vs. Lived Experience
Passion vs. Rationality
Summary
Analysis
An angry mob riots outside. Fenwick, Susannah, Armstrong, and Roget are in a room filled with stuffed birds and animals suspended from the ceiling or displayed in cases. Fenwick sits writing at his desk, on which rests papers, a skull, and jars containing pickled organs. Susannah sits at a card table, drinks brandy, and gradually gets drunk. Armstrong nervously listens to the mob and checks his watch.
The stuffed and dissected animals serve as a visual reminder of the brutality involved in scientific discovery. Susannah’s drunkenness suggests that she’s unhappy or suffering—her husband’s indifference to her drinking suggests that maybe he (or his indifference to Susannah) is part of the problem. Meanwhile, Armstrong’s anxious demeanor suggests that he’s late for something but can’t leave because of the rioting.
Themes
Fenwick tells Armstrong to stop worrying. Then he asks if Roget has any ideas for the upcoming New Year’s Eve lectures. Roget looks through his papers and summarizes one proposal, which is about dental work. Outside, the rioting continues. Armstrong frets about being late for an appointment. Fenwick asks what Armstrong is late for anyway. Armstrong looks at Susannah and then cautiously explains that he was supposed to observe Dr Farleigh’s “demonstration.” This one is “particularly interesting,” Armstrong explains, and involves a 30-year-old woman with an “enormously malformed skull.”
Fenwick and Roget’s discussion of New Year’s Eve lectures—of ringing in the new century—with lectures on scientific achievement reinforces the connection between science and progress. Meanwhile, Armstrong’s almost ghoulish fascination with the woman with the “enormously malformed skull” suggests that science isn’t as objective and detached as its proponents would like to suggest. Armstrong’s fascination with the woman seems almost erotic.
Themes
Roget describes another lecture proposal to Fenwick; this one, by Mr. Percy Fellowes, is about “Left Leggedness,” and how nature seems universally predisposed to use its right side. Fenwick wryly notes that Kant wasn’t talking about Fellowes when he declared the present day “an age of enlightenment[.]”
Fenwick’s disparaging remark about Fellowes references Immanuel Kant, an influential philosopher of the Enlightenment. The proposal on “Left Leggedness” that Fenwick scoffs at and rejects demonstrates once more that scientific advancement isn’t entirely neutral—its direction is determined by whatever subjects humans wish to study, and sometimes those subjects are lacking, foolish, or not particularly useful in advancing society.
Themes
Next, Roget summarizes Reverend Jessop’s proposal, which explores plants’ capacity for “self-preservation.” Fenwick bemoans all the lackluster lecture proposals he’s received. The New Year’s Eve lectures should get the audience excited about the revolutionary future, Fenwick argues. He insults Jessop, calling him a “self-righteous” fool with a weak handshake. Armstrong suggests that Fenwick is letting his personal dislike of Jessop get in the way of viewing Jessop’s work objectively. Fenwick snaps that what Jessop does is more theology than science. He admits that he’s being too harsh on Jessop but rejects Jessop’s proposal anyway.
Interestingly—and as Armstrong suggests—Fenwick seems to be rejecting proposals based on his personal feelings toward the researchers, not their actual research. In other words, he's letting his subjective opinions about these men dictate which information (or truth) his lecture’s audience hears. Fenwick values science, but he also seems to think that humans can and should use things like morals and subjective taste to determine which kind of science is worth pursuing and which isn’t.
Themes
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Harriet, Maria, and Isobel enter. Harriet is dressed as Britannia, Maria is dressed as a shepherdess, and Isobel is dressed as a sheep. Harriet frantically explains that the mob has just thrown a brick through the greenhouses. Fenwick, unconcerned, says it was probably an accident; he assures his daughters that the riots will settle down soon. But Susannah, Harriet, and Maria plead with Fenwick to at least talk to the mob. Fenwick assures them that the mob knows he’s sympathetic to their demands (they were rioting over corn last week, and this week it’s about fish). Susannah suggests that Fenwick’s sympathy is insincere and merely “affectation.”
That Maria and Harriet are dressed as people—while poor Isobel must don a humiliating sheep costume—reinforces how their different social classes (Maria and Harriet come from an affluent family, meanwhile Isobel is their lower-class domestic servant) create a power imbalance between them. The ongoing rioting is a real historical event—in 1799, 1800, and 1801, widespread rioting of the poor and working classes erupted throughout England in response to food scarcity and rising prices for food as a result of Napoleon’s blockade of England (England had been fighting against Revolutionary France since 1793). Though overthrowing the monarchy resulted in an improved quality of life for France’s lower classes, revolution—like scientific progress or progress of any kind—also came with negative side effects that hurt vulnerable populations, like England’s poor.
Themes
Fenwick compares a riot to a play: both have a rising action, reversal, climax, and resolution—and then, finally, everyone gets to go home. Things momentarily quiet down outside, and Fenwick suggests that the riot has finally reached its resolution. He mocks the mob for demanding so little, noting that the English don’t care about universal suffrage and resolution—all they want is cheaper fish; none of them are revolutionaries.
In comparing a riot to a play, Fenwick aestheticizes rioting and thus minimizes the very real grievances that inspired the rioting in the first place. Like Armstrong’s ghoulish fascination with Farleigh’s dissections, Fenwick’s interest in revolution isn’t wholly rooted in a drive for progress—he has a subjective, personal taste for revolution, too.
Themes
Maria spins around and asks Roget what he thinks of her costume. She’s playing an Arcadian Idyll, she explains, which is really a metaphor. Susannah brags about Harriet’s talent for poetry, likening her to “Milton, Shakespeare, Southey, that other fellow[.]” Harriet begs her mother to stop.
Susannah’s hyperbolic praise for Harriet’s poetry further casts Susannah as a dramatic and perhaps untruthful character. In addition, her passion for poetry places her opposite Fenwick, Roget, and Armstrong, who are proponents of science rather than the arts.
Themes
Armstrong asks what Harriet’s play is about. Harriet describes it as “a hymn to progress.” Maria’s character represents the past, and Harriet’s character represents the future: “Empire, Industry, Science, Wealth and Reason.” Maria spends much of the play sitting atop a hill and tending her flock—this represents “Pastoral Innocence.” Harriet plans to make a chimney-like headpiece to add to her costume.
Harriet, in describing her play as “a hymn to progress,” implies that she’s more interested in Fenwick’s scientific research than in Susannah’s penchant for poetry—it seems that Susannah may be projecting a talent for poetry onto Harriet not because Harriet demonstrates an actual talent for poetry, but because society believes that women are better suited to the arts and passions than to science and cold, hard facts.
Themes
Roget suggests the “pastoral innocence” that Maria’s character represents isn’t quite true to life since shepherds work under harsh and sometimes deadly conditions. Harriet reminds him Maria’s character is an idyll—an idealized representation of a shepherd. She explains that the play is “a fable” which is “a sort of universal truth.”
Roget is accusing Harriet of unfairly projecting a “pastoral innocence” or backwardness onto past ways of being (for which the shepherdess is a metaphor)—he’s suggesting that Harriet’s decision to see science as good and traditions of the past as limiting and regressive is unnuanced and not even all that truth to life. And Harriet proves Roget’s point when she claims that her play is “a fable” and “a sort of universal truth.” It’s unnuanced and erroneous to claim that anything can be universally true.
Themes
Roget asks Isobel what she’s supposed to be. Isobel says she supposed to be a sheep, though she has the wrong ears. She complains that the play isn’t all that great. For starters, sheep can’t talk. Harriet explains the talking sheep as just one example of “the magic of theatre[.]” Isobel also takes issue with her character’s “infantile” lines. She asks Harriet if she can have better lines, but Harriet says no—Isobel’s character is a sheep, after all, and sheep don’t say anything interesting. Besides, some rules must be followed—and one of those rules is that actors must stick to their lines. If they didn’t, “chaos” would ensue.
Harriet’s comment about the need to follow certain rules—lest “chaos” ensue—shows how people use supposedly neutral logic to rationalize opinions that benefit themselves. In this situation, Harriet is using existing theater conventions to rationalize her mistreatment of Isobel and uphold (what seems to be) an oppressive, classist view that Isobel, as a servant, is inferior.
Themes
Fenwick looks up from his writing and asks Isobel which word he should use, “cusp” or “threshold.” Isobel says that threshold is better—it’s more precise and straightforward than cusp. Everyone stares at Isobel. Fenwick reads aloud the passage in question (“…we stand on the threshold of a new century […]”) and then thanks Isobel.
When the other (upper-class) characters respond with surprise to Isobel’s knowledge of language and rhetoric, it reinforces their classist bias against her—they seem to assume that Isobel’s status as an uneducated domestic servant means she’s unintelligent. Once more, the play makes clear the extent to which bias permeates the worldviews held by otherwise rational, logical characters.
Themes
Harriet asks Fenwick if he can see the play now that he’s finished writing, but Fenwick says he’s busy. Harriet doesn’t think this is fair, as they sit through all of Fenwick’s experiments. Maria adds that Fenwick even made them observe the dissection of a spaniel. Irritated, Harriet calls Fenwick “selfish and cruel” and then storms out of the room.
For all Fenwick’s radical talk of equality and progress, he seems not to extend these theoretical, philosophical views to his practical interactions with his family—the careless way he blows off Harriet makes this clear. This passage thus reinforces that there are often great disparities between people’s idealized views and the way those views play out in real life.
Themes
Susannah explains to their guests that Harriet is just at “an awkward age,” but Maria says Harriet has always had a short temper; this is also why Maria is engaged and Harriet is not. Then Maria runs from the room to console Harriet. Fenwick orders Isobel to stay, but Isobel says she’d prefer to leave, since her back hurts. Armstrong asks if Isobel’s “malformation” is getting worse. Isobel doesn’t know—she hasn’t looked in the mirror in quite some time, but she has noticed that her clothes fit more awkwardly these days.
Susannah’s impulse to write off Harriet’s irritation as the result of Harriet being at “an awkward age” further establishes her as a character driven by emotion and instinct rather than logic. There’s a perfectly rational explanation for Harriet’s outburst—her father broke his promise to her and has made it clear that he doesn’t value her work—yet Susannah (and Maria) ignore this to uphold their own emotional, biased view of Harriet.
Themes
Armstrong feels Isobel’s back and asks if it hurts. Isobel explains that the pain is in her hips, not her back. And anyway, there’s nothing Armstrong can do about it. Susannah agrees with this—and claims that any doctors who suggest otherwise are “quacks.” What will really help Isobel is brandy. Fenwick tries to argue with Susannah, but she snaps that she’s just pointing out the truth: physicians rarely cure people. Fenwick says they can talk about this later; Susannah acts mock-astonished that Fenwick is interested in having an actual discussion with her.
This scene draws attention to Isobel’s “malformation”—and Armstrong’s keen interest in it. The play never makes clear what has caused Isobel’s back problems, but Armstrong’s unusually strong interest in it seems worth paying attention to—he seems interested in it in more than a purely objective, clinical way. This scene also further establishes Susannah as distrusting of—or at least disinterested in—science and medicine. Furthermore, the way that Fenwick and Susannah spar in this scene suggests that their opposing views on science and medicine is a source of tension in their marriage.
Themes
Fenwick asks Isobel if she can read. She says yes—all Scots can. Fenwick asks if this means that English people are “ignorant.” Isobel’s comment hasn’t offended him, but he does want to know more about Isobel’s opinion of the English. Isobel hesitates. Finally, she says she’s not sure what “English” means. The Scots word for English is “Sassenach,” but people say this means Saxon—and, as a lowland Scot, she’s a Saxon, so this must mean that she’s a Sassenach, too. Roget muses that the word has two meanings, then: a literal meaning and a “commonly understood” meaning—and maybe, in time, the common meaning will replace the literal.
Fenwick’s suggestion that the English are “ignorant” for making broad assumptions about Scottish literacy gestures toward the idea that it’s impossible for humans to ever really know everything about themselves and the surrounding world because their personal (and socially/culturally conditioned) biases prevent them from observing the world objectively. Roget gets at this idea, too, when he distinguishes between a word’s literal meaning and its “commonly understood” meaning—literal meaning, Roget suggests, is a word’s objective, true meaning, while a word’s “commonly understood” meaning is the biased, socially conditioned meaning that people learn to attach to a word.
Themes
Isobel says it’s difficult to define Englishness because its definition changes over time. Armstrong applauds Isobel’s answer and asks who told her to say it, implying that it’s not an original thought. Fenwick asks if Isobel associates other traits with Englishness. Isobel can’t think of any and explains that she’s mostly interested in “words.” For instance, the English use the same word, nursery, to describe a place where children and plants are kept—maybe this says something about Englishness. At any rate, Isobel explains, she knows that she’s a Scot—not “one of you.” Fenwick wonders if Isobel is confusing class with race.
This scene further highlights Isobel’s status as an outsider—not only is she lower class than the others, but she’s also Scottish rather than English. Also, Isobel’s comment about the definition of “Englishness” changing over the years reinforces one of the play’s key ideas: that it’s all but impossible for humans to know everything about themselves and the surrounding world, since even the most objective “facts” about the world and the human condition change over time and are always subject to changing cultural and social attitudes.
Themes
Harriet returns and tells Fenwick that the cook has let some men who needed a place to “hide” for a while into the kitchen. Susannah gets up, swaying a bit, and says she’ll take care of the men in the kitchen, then she exits the study. Fenwick pleads with Susannah to let him handle the situation. He apologizes to the others and follows his wife out. Harriet follows them.
Fenwick puts forth radical, utopian views about the interconnectedness of knowledge, progress, and democracy, yet his actions show that these idealized views don’t quite carry over to his lived experience.
Themes
Isobel asks Roget and Armstrong if she can leave, too. Roget says yes, but Armstrong asks Isobel to stay for a bit and tell them about her life. Then he tells her she’s pretty. Isobel assumes that he’s lying. Anyway, Isobel has accepted that she is many things—a domestic servant, “an underling, a menial and a minion.” She knows 27 words for what she is, and none of them are “pretty.” Armstrong counters that beauty is about more than appearances. Isobel accuses Armstrong of messing with her. Armstrong finally gives up, and Roget tells Isobel she can go.
Armstrong’s curiosity about Isobel seems put on—at the very least, he seems to have motivations for being interested in her that he’s not being upfront about. Isobel seems aware of this; when she reminds Armstrong that she is “an underling, a menial and a minion,” she’s suggesting that not only is she not “pretty”—but class-wise, she’s well below Armstrong, a professional’s, league. At any rate, Armstrong’s seeming duplicitousness further establishes him as an immoral, untrustworthy character. It also reinforces the idea that it’s difficult (if not impossible) for people to know the absolute truth about the world.
Themes
After Isobel leaves, Roget confronts Armstrong. Armstrong explains that all women like to receive compliments. Roget accuses Armstrong of being cruel. Armstrong argues that he really does find Isobel interesting, though, and he wonders “what caused [Isobel’s] hump[.]” They exit.
Armstrong, as a scientist, fancies himself a rational, logical person, yet he further reveals how personal, socially conditioned biases corrupt his worldview when he claims that all women like receiving compliments—which is almost certainly a “fact” he’s gleaned through anecdotal evidence rather than legitimate, unbiased “research.” Also note that Armstrong once more expresses an unnatural interest in Isobel’s “hump,” which seems to be a clue about his real reasons for wooing her.
Themes
Maria appears onstage and reads aloud a letter from Edward, her fiancé. In the letter, Edward describes watching one of their bearers being crushed to death by an elephant; the man’s “head popped open like a pomegranate.” Edward also describes a woman named Miss Cholmondely—she’s visiting from Yorkshire and apparently fainted when she saw a statue at a local temple. Though men can appreciate “the instructional aspect of such things,” women are usually just offended. Anyway, she didn’t remember much of the incident afterward. The natives find it entertaining, too, though not in the way the English do: the English have “a modesty of demeanour, a judicious thoughtfulness[.]” The way the natives hold themselves makes Edward think they’re “hiding something.” He closes this letter, instructing Maria to write soon.
Edward seems to be stationed in India, where in 1799, when the play takes place, the British Empire had a colonial presence. The audience may interpret Edward’s involvement in colonization as something of a metaphor for the ethically dubious aspects of scientific progress. With expansion—whether it be expansion of knowledge, or expansion of colonial power—necessarily comes oppression. Edward doesn’t say much about this Miss Cholmondely, but that he makes a point to mention her by name seems to suggest that she’s someone the audience should remember. Finally, Edward’s thoughts on women’s inability to appreciate “the instructional aspect of” the (presumably explicit or salacious in some way) statues at the temple mirror Armstrong’s earlier remark about women not being suited to science. Both men use anecdotal, shoddy evidence to make overarching, sexist claims about how women are in general. This again shows how science isn’t as objective and morally neutral as its proponents would like to think—in fact, people bring their biased views to their interpretation of data and can, as Edward does here, use that bias to perpetuate oppression and misinformation.
Themes
