Emergency by Denis Johnson Analysis

Vocab Words:

Orderly: assistant in the hospital

Gurney: wheeled hospital stretcher

Austere: plain and without luxury

Saplings: small trees

Johnson uses irony in “Emergency” through his portrayal of the health care professionals. A doctor is the highest rank achievable in the medical field. However, in this story, the doctor acts very unprofessional. Instead of tending to the patient, he calls on Georgie, (who he knows is on drugs) to tend to the patient, and says, “I dialed the hospital operator and told her to get me the eye man and the brain man and the gas man.” He does not use correct terminology and he puts his work off on other people. There is a contrast in that Georgie, the one who lack professional training and who is high on drugs, is the one who removes the knife from the man’s head. Johnson confirms this role reversal in the last line of the story, when Hardee asked Georgie, “What do you do for a job?” and Georgie said, “I save lives.”

Johnson also uses drugs as a major theme in the story. He uses this theme to portray drugs in both positive and negative lights. Drugs cause Georgie to think about deep and moral matters, such as church and worship. The story reads, “”I want to go to church,” Georgie said. “Let’s go to the country fair.” “I’d like to worship. I would.” “They have these injured hawks and eagles there. From the Humane Society,” I said. “I need a quiet chapel about now.” The drugs bring out a deeper and more pensive side of Georgie. On the other hand, they also cause him to be more primal, as with the rabbit example…“A jackrabbit scurried in front of us, and we hit it….He threw the truck in reverse and zigzagged back toward the rabbit. “Where’s my hunting knife?” He almost ran over the poor animal a second time….In a minute he was standing at the edge of the fields, cutting the scrawny little thing up, tossing away its organs.” Through this example, Johnson reveals the negative side of drugs; that they can cause you to do things that you would regret and find repulsive while sober.

Lastly, there is a transition that exists in the last page of the story involving the narrator. The majority of the story, the narrator is not participating; he is observing the doctor and nurse in the hospital, he is observing Georgie clean the floors, and then he agrees to go on the adventure with Georgie, but he lets Georgie take the lead. He is present, but he is not really involved in life. In the last page, however, he picks up Hardee and the reader catches a brief glimpse into their relationship. In the final line, Hardee asks Georgie what he does for a job and Georgie says, “I save lives.” interpreted this line to mean that Georgie was also going to “save” the narrator’s life in that he would help him to stop simply observing life and start really living it.