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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
The scene picks up in 1999, in the same room as before (the dining room). Only one tea chest remains unpacked. Tom is sitting at the head of the table in the seat that Susannah was sitting in in the previous scene; Ellen sits beside him. Tom raises his glass and congratulates her (albeit rather unenthusiastically) on accepting the job. Ellen tells him she briefly considered staying at her current position and “avoid[ing] filthy commercialism,” but she found the prospect of funding and research “too exciting.” Ultimately, she admits, her decision wasn’t “intellectual”—it came from the heart.
That Tom sits where Susannah sat in the last scene aligns their characters: both feel alienated and disregarded by their scientifically inclined, overly rational spouses. This scene also reveals an important plot detail: Ellen has decided to accept a job with Kate’s company, apparently setting aside her ethical concerns about the job to take part in the ”exciting” research the job will allow her to conduct. But more important is her realization about why she decided to take the job: she didn’t arrive at her decision through rational, “intellectual” means—rather, she listened to her heart. This further puts forth the idea that rationality and irrationality, logic and passion, are more connected than one might think they are.
Themes
Tom notes that the heart isn’t “just a pump.” It’s actually involved in decision-making and personality. When people receive heart transplants, they sometimes take on personality traits of the donor. Ellen jokingly asks Tom if he’s been talking to Phil, but Tom insists that it’s the heart that feels things like love and grief—not the brain. Ellen calls Tom’s musings “poetic” and quite unlike science, which is thought to be “cold and considered and rational.” Though in practice, Ellen admits, science is rarely so objective. She compares her passion for science to Tom’s passion for literature. Tom agrees that he and Ellen aren’t so different: their respective fields of art and science are like two sides of a coin, which come together “to define the whole.”
Tom’s “poetic”—if perhaps factually dubious—remark about heart-transplant recipients taking on the personality traits of their doners further gestures toward the interconnectedness of the heart and the brain—of passion and rationality. He’s suggesting that people’s emotions (with the heart being a sort of metaphor for emotion) influences the way people make sense of the world just as much—if not more—than pure, unbiased knowledge. Indeed, Ellen and Tom—who up to this point have sparred over/due to their seemingly opposite fields of science and the arts—find a common ground and reconcile their differences when they acknowledge that for both of them, passion and emotion underly their commitment to their work. This suggests that a person needs both passion and logic “to define the whole” and give meaning to the human experience.
Themes
Ellen explains how Tom’s qualms about the new job have made her consider things she’s never before considered. And doing so has taught her that she, unlike Kate, “do[es]n’t think science is value free” or “morally neutral.” Kate enters just then, carrying two bottles of wine and asks, “What do I do?” Tom says that Kate is “unscrupulous, ambitious,” and would cut up her own mother if it would lead to some kind of scientific discovery. Kate agrees, though she contends that she’d have to be sure her mother was dead. She would never kill or murder anyone, though.
Kate’s humorous quip about being willing to dissect her (already dead) mother for science mirrors Armstrong’s earlier remark about consenting to Roget cutting him into porterhouse steaks, thus further aligning these two characters. Both are more driven by (irrational) passion than they’re willing to acknowledge. Not only does this underscore the interconnectedness of passion and logic, but it also demonstrates how people’s personal biases can skew their worldviews and prevent them from knowing the full, neutral truth about themselves and the broader world.
Themes
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Kate thinks that the main difference between herself and Tom is that to her, the world is “all possibility,” while Tom thinks that “everything is remembrance.” Tom sarcastically asks Kate if he should slit his throat now, since it’s inevitable that he’ll die anyway. He insists the past matters—that it’s “always with us,” and accuses Kate of using terms like “manic depression and schizophrenia” as though they were clearly defined things when really, they’re not. And though schizophrenia can cause suffering, it doesn’t always. All the world is a spectrum, Tom says, but Kate only cares about her “tidy version of it[.]”
Kate further demonstrates her inability to consider herself and her world from an unbiased, nuanced perspective. She’s unwilling to see things from Tom’s perspective and instead makes grandiose judgments about their opposite viewpoints, claiming that for herself, the world is “all possibility,” meanwhile Tom’s respect for “remembrance” and the past is fundamentally regressive and antithetical to progress. She refuses to see that Tom isn’t criticizing her field or progress in a broader sense—he’s criticizing her overidealized, oversimplified view of the world, or her “tidy version of [reality.]”
Themes
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Kate replies that Tom’s theory is “romantic” but untrue; she calls him “a dinosaur.” Tom says that dinosaurs like himself may be “cynical” and “ironic,” but they can see the broader picture and “know […] that the Messiah’s not coming.” Kate just laughs; even the second coming, she argues, isn’t a sure thing.
Kate describes Tom’s theory of reality as “romantic” to insult him, and she doubles down in calling him “a dinosaur.” Most of the play’s other characters have managed to find common ground and form more nuanced perspectives on the relationship between art and science, passion and rationality—but Kate’s idealism prevents her from calling any of her strongly held views into question.
Themes
Phil enters and says he’s headed out. Tom invites Phil to join them for a drink, and Phil accepts. It’ll be the 21st century in 24 hours, Phil observes, but it doesn’t feel like it. He thought it’d feel “futuristic,” but tonight just feels like “the same old shite[.]” Phil excuses himself, explaining that he has to take his daughter to the hospital. Everyone says, “Happy New Year!” Then Tom leaves. The others stay onstage but stand totally still.
Phil’s rather cynical quip about the new century feeling like “the same old shite” hints at the way that idealism can obscure reality. He’s suggesting that people regard progress and the future with an idolizing, uncritical gaze when in fact real progress is far less overwhelmingly, absolutely positive than people expect it to be.
Themes
Isobel walks onstage carrying paper, a pencil, and the silk-wrapped gift Armstrong gave her; she unwraps it to reveal a gold chain and places the chain around her neck. Then she reads aloud the letter she has just written. She says that she can’t find the words “to describe [her] anguish.” She used to be happy, but now, she feels hopelessly unlovable and sees the future as more unbearable suffering. The love she felt from Armstrong might not have been real, but it made her happy; she wishes she never learned the truth.
When Isobel unwraps the gold chain, it all but confirms what the audience has likely suspected but hasn’t known for sure up to this point: that the bones Tom discovers in the 1999 timeline belong to Isobel. The question still remains: how does she die? Given her despair, it’s reasonable to predict that she may end her own life. While it’s undeniably good Isobel has discovered Armstrong’s intentions before he could manipulate and exploit her further, the immediate consequence of her discovery actually increases her suffering instead of lessening it. Thus, this scene challenges the assertion that characters like Roget and Fenwick hold about knowledge always being a positive thing.
Themes
