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Book 1, Part 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Trust, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
U.S. Foundational Myths
Gender and Subjugation
Wealth
Power and Morality
Self-Interest vs. the Common Good
Summary
Analysis
A man named Dr. Frahm is now in charge of the sanatorium, the Medico-Mechanic Institute. Benjamin arranges to have an entire wing dedicated to Helen’s care. He first offers to finance the wing, and when Dr. Frahm declines, Benjamin ensures that drugs won’t be available to the institute until Dr. Frahm agrees and hires someone to dispute Dr. Frahm’s work in a newspaper. Construction on the wing starts two weeks later. Benjamin then dedicates himself to Helen’s care; for the first time in his adult life, business doesn’t come first.
Benjamin’s treatment of Dr. Frahm shows how he uses his seemingly limitless financial resources to bully and coerce others to get his way. While Dr. Frahm has achieved a certain amount of renown in his profession, he has no way to counter Benjamin once Benjamin begins bullying him. Harold uses the dynamic between Dr. Frahm and Benjamin to portray a world in which money—as opposed to expertise, knowledge, professional position, or any other metric—grants a person true power.
Themes
At the institute, Helen visits her father’s room and is struck by how small it is. Dr. Frahm then takes her off all medications before starting her on lithium salts. The institute also focuses on the body and encourages patients to hike, rest, and exercise. The more she pushes her body, the quieter her mind becomes. Helen begins to subtly improve. But as she improves, her interactions with Benjamin become increasingly cold. He thinks that her illness has only increased the distance between them. That is especially hard for him to come to terms with because with nurses and with Dr. Frahm, Helen seems as warm and as animated as ever.
Dr. Frahm takes a holistic approach to try and treat Helen’s mental illness. He seems to consider her as a person rather than as a patient first. Benjamin takes Helen’s persistent coldness toward him as a side-effect of her mental illness without seeming to consider the possibility that she is simply not as fond of him as he is of her. That suggests that Benjamin lacks self-awareness and the empathy required to truly understand Helen, and perhaps that his ego interferes with his capacity for emotional intelligence.
Themes
After two months, Benjamin begins to arrange their travel back to the U.S. He knows Helen will oppose it and Dr. Frahm will advise against it, so he keeps the arrangements secret. But before Benjamin’s plan goes into motion, Helen disappears from the institute. He learns that she heard rumors of the plan to leave and fled in response. Eventually, someone finds her in a nearby town. Benjamin takes Helen back to the northern wing of the institute but cuts all ties between that wing and the institute itself. He installs his own staff and ensures Dr. Frahm will have no contact with Helen. He then heavily sedates Helen and calls on Dr. Aftus, who works for the German pharmaceutical company Haber Pharmaceuticals, of which Benjamin owns a large stake.
Even though Dr. Frahm’s treatment seems to be working, Benjamin aims to make Helen return to the U.S. against her will. The primary driving force behind Benjamin’s actions and decisions seems to be his ego. He wants to push Helen back to the U.S. even though he knows she’s not ready because he doesn’t want to stand by, powerless, as she grows farther and farther from him. When that plan doesn’t work, Benjamin resorts to the only thing he knows: he tries to use his money to get his way. In this case, he brings in a doctor who he’s sure will do his bidding, unlike Dr. Frahm.
Themes
Dr. Aftus uses “convulsive therapy,” or medically inducing seizures, to treat schizophrenia. After the first procedure, when Benjamin sees Helen, she looks utterly exhausted and stripped of the will to live. She descends deeper into catatonia as the procedures continue. But Benjamin also believes that her improvement is evident. She seems more engaged with him and her surroundings. On the day of the third and final treatment, Benjamin sits on a bench by the entrance of the wing of the institute. Dr. Aftus comes to find him and tells him that Helen’s heart gave out during the procedure, and she died. Dr. Aftus says he knows his condolences won’t be enough.
Even though Helen seems like she has been stripped of the will to live by Dr. Aftus’s treatments, Benjamin convinces himself the treatments are working and lets Dr. Aftus keep going. Benjamin seems to base his opinion solely on the idea that Helen is engaging with him more, showing that the sole determining factor in Benjamin’s decisions seems to be his ego. That ego, along with his desire to have power over the situation, then leads to Helen’s death. In that way, Benjamin subjugates Helen to the point that he becomes complicit in her death.
Themes
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When Benjamin returns to New York, he leaves the house untouched and throws himself into his work. But he seems to have lost his touch at predicting the fluctuations of the market, and any profits he makes are marginal. Benjamin realizes, with a kind of terror, that Helen’s death hasn’t substantially changed his life. The only difference now is that the distance he felt between him and Helen is now absolute. He continues on more or less the same as before. He continues funding the arts, as Helen had done, but he stops his work in the research and innovation of psychiatric methods.
In Harold’s telling, Benjamin’s relationship with Helen seemed to be his one opportunity to connect to his own humanity. Benjamin sacrificed that humanity to his ego, though, when he pushed for the medical treatments that led to Helen’s death. As a result, after her death, Benjamin returns to his work and his previous life, but any hope that he might find love or passion seems utterly diminished.
Themes
