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Phil is a builder conducting a building survey on Ellen and Tom’s house—the same house in which the 1799 plot takes place. Phil hasn’t had a formal education, and this sets him apart from the other characters of the 1999 plot, who are all college-educated professionals of comfortable means. Phil subscribes to a number of pseudo-scientific urban myths like the possibility of spontaneous combustion, and he implies that Ellen is closed-minded for not considering his friends’ stories—about UFO sightings and the like—to be valid “evidence.” The play mostly uses his character to provide comic relief. Phil is generally skeptical of scientists like Ellen and Kate. He has moral qualms with their genetic research, in particular their goal to use gene mapping to eliminate diseases like Alzheimer’s or bipolar disorder. Like Tom, Phil believes that Kate’s (and to a lesser degree Ellen’s) idealism blinds her to the ethical issues and potentially negative consequences of gene mapping. And Phil, too, fears that gene mapping could become corrupt and harmful to society. He also has personal reasons for opposing gene mapping. Phil’s Uncle Stan had bipolar disorder, and though Stan ultimately died by suicide, Phil has fond memories of Stan. Phil doesn’t think that any human—scientist or not—can objectively decide that the “Uncle Stans” of the world can’t live good, meaningful lives just because they also suffer. Phil and Tom are also alike in their reverence for Isobel’s bones, though Phil’s penchant for conspiracy theories also leads him to speculate that Isobel’s bones might have belonged to a supernatural, subhuman species.
Phil Quotes in An Experiment with an Air Pump
The An Experiment with an Air Pump quotes below are all either spoken by Phil or refer to Phil. 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:
).
Act 1, Scene 2
Quotes
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.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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.
Act 1, Scene 3
Quotes
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.
Get the entire An Experiment with an Air Pump LitChart as a printable PDF.
Phil Quotes in An Experiment with an Air Pump
The An Experiment with an Air Pump quotes below are all either spoken by Phil or refer to Phil. 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:
).
Act 1, Scene 2
Quotes
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.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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.
Act 1, Scene 3
Quotes
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.
