Ellen Character Analysis

I’ve loved this painting since I was thirteen years old. I’ve loved it because it has a scientist at the heart of it, a scientist where you usually find God. Here, centre stage, is not a saint or an archangel, but a man. Look at his face, bathed in celestial light, here is a man beatified by his search for truth. As a child enraptured by the possibilities of science, this painting set my heart racing, it made the blood tingle in my veins: I wanted to be this scientist; I wanted to be up there in the thick of it, all eyes drawn to me, frontiers tumbling before my merciless deconstruction. […] I wanted to be God.

But when I was thirteen, what held me more than anything, was the drama at the centre of it all, the clouds scudding across a stage-set moon, the candle-light dipping and flickering. Who would not want to be caught up in this world? Who could resist the power of light over darkness?

Susannah: Maria, show a little faith, your father would never conduct an experiment unless he was quite sure of the outcome, isn’t that so?

Fenwick: You haven’t quite grasped the subtlety of the word ‘experiment’, Susannah –

Ellen: Anecdotal doesn’t count. They could be making it up. Or elaborating something much more explicable.

Phil: Why would they want to do that?

Ellen: Because people like telling stories. They like sitting around and telling tales for which there’s no rational explanation. Like ghost stories. And crop circles. And being a reincarnation of Marie Antoinette. I’m not entirely sure why. You’d need to ask a psychologist.

Ellen: The fact that you’ve never had a moral qualm in your life doesn’t mean you have superior reasoning power, it just means you have a limited imagination.

Kate: We’ll be able to pinpoint genes for particular types of cancer, for neurological disorders, for all sorts of things, some of them benign, some of them not, but what it really means is we’ll understand the shape and complexity of a human being, we’ll be able to say this is a man, this is exactly who he is, this is his potential, these are his possible limitations. And manic depression is genetic. We’ll pin it down soon.

Phil: And then what? No more Uncle Stans.

Tom: So what’s the difference? At what stage does it stop being disturbing and start being archaeology?

Isobel: I’m unused to answering questions. When I talk about myself my face feels hot. When I talk about myself I feel that I am lying.

Armstrong: Are you?

Isobel: I’m not sure. I try not to. But we all lie about ourselves.

Armstrong: Do we?

Isobel: We don’t mean to but we do.

Kate: She probably wasn’t murdered. She was dissected. That’s why some of her’s missing.

Susannah: I am full of feeling and passion and I am wedded to a dried cod.

Tom: The heart retains information, they don’t understand how, yet, but everything’s connected one way or another, nothing exists in isolation. When you feel grief, your heart hurts. When you feel love, it’s your heart that hurts, not your brain. You took this job because your heart told you to.

Tom: So we’re not that much different after all. Art and science are part of the same thing. Like waves and particles. You need both to define the whole.

I’ve loved this painting since I was thirteen years old. I’ve loved it because it has a scientist at the heart of it, a scientist where you usually find God. Here, centre stage, is not a saint or an archangel, but a man. Look at his face, bathed in celestial light, here is a man beatified by his search for truth. As a child enraptured by the possibilities of science, this painting set my heart racing, it made the blood tingle in my veins: I wanted to be this scientist; I wanted to be up there in the thick of it, all eyes drawn to me, frontiers tumbling before my merciless deconstruction. […] I wanted to be God.

But when I was thirteen, what held me more than anything, was the drama at the centre of it all, the clouds scudding across a stage-set moon, the candle-light dipping and flickering. Who would not want to be caught up in this world? Who could resist the power of light over darkness?

Susannah: Maria, show a little faith, your father would never conduct an experiment unless he was quite sure of the outcome, isn’t that so?

Fenwick: You haven’t quite grasped the subtlety of the word ‘experiment’, Susannah –

Ellen: Anecdotal doesn’t count. They could be making it up. Or elaborating something much more explicable.

Phil: Why would they want to do that?

Ellen: Because people like telling stories. They like sitting around and telling tales for which there’s no rational explanation. Like ghost stories. And crop circles. And being a reincarnation of Marie Antoinette. I’m not entirely sure why. You’d need to ask a psychologist.

Ellen: The fact that you’ve never had a moral qualm in your life doesn’t mean you have superior reasoning power, it just means you have a limited imagination.

Kate: We’ll be able to pinpoint genes for particular types of cancer, for neurological disorders, for all sorts of things, some of them benign, some of them not, but what it really means is we’ll understand the shape and complexity of a human being, we’ll be able to say this is a man, this is exactly who he is, this is his potential, these are his possible limitations. And manic depression is genetic. We’ll pin it down soon.

Phil: And then what? No more Uncle Stans.

Tom: So what’s the difference? At what stage does it stop being disturbing and start being archaeology?

Isobel: I’m unused to answering questions. When I talk about myself my face feels hot. When I talk about myself I feel that I am lying.

Armstrong: Are you?

Isobel: I’m not sure. I try not to. But we all lie about ourselves.

Armstrong: Do we?

Isobel: We don’t mean to but we do.

Kate: She probably wasn’t murdered. She was dissected. That’s why some of her’s missing.

Susannah: I am full of feeling and passion and I am wedded to a dried cod.

Tom: The heart retains information, they don’t understand how, yet, but everything’s connected one way or another, nothing exists in isolation. When you feel grief, your heart hurts. When you feel love, it’s your heart that hurts, not your brain. You took this job because your heart told you to.

Tom: So we’re not that much different after all. Art and science are part of the same thing. Like waves and particles. You need both to define the whole.