William and Mary (short story)

"William and Mary" is a short story by Roald Dahl, originally published in 1959 and included in his 1960 collection Kiss Kiss. It was later adapted into episodes of Way Out and Tales of the Unexpected.[1]

Plot summary

Mary Pearl receives a note from her recently deceased husband, William. The letter tells how Landy, a doctor, approaches William, a well-regarded philosopher, about his cancer, six weeks before William's death. He suggests William undertake a procedure, which he explains in great detail, that would mean his brain being transplanted from his body after death, and attached to an artificial heart. The brain would be bathing in a Ringer's solution. One of his eyes could also be hooked up. Although the doctor is uncertain whether the brain would regain consciousness, he remains hopeful. William initially reacts violently to this suggestion, but by the end of their discussion has lightened up to the idea more. He is initially concerned with the idea of phantom limb, believing that as a brain alone he may be in terrible trauma, wishing for the use of his body. However, he writes, he eventually embraced the idea, being very fond of his brain and liking the suggestion that it could live on.

He had attempted to discuss this earlier with Mary, but she had pushed him aside. He adds that by the time she reads the letter, the procedure should have been undertaken a week earlier, and suggests she contact Landy. She does so and immediately begins to take care of him. The procedure had gone as well as could be expected, and William had regained consciousness within two days. His connected eye also appears to be functioning properly. Mary finds the previously dominating William to be attractive in his helplessness and wishes to take him back home. Landy, not at all expecting such a reaction, tells her she should stick to being a widow, and the story ends with William's future uncertain.

Mary has been depicted as rebelling against her husband's restrictions after his death: she has bought a television and is openly smoking, for instance, both actions condemned by William in his letter. As the story closes, William appears to see Mary smoke, and is infuriated by it, his eye clearly registering a look of fury. Mary blows the smoke of her cigarette in the eye.

Analysis

Mary's wish to bring William home with her can be interpreted as a perverse desire for revenge against her controlling husband by flaunting her independence before his now helpless state.[2]

gollark: Encrypted msgpack objects?
gollark: Anyway, broadly speaking a kernel just provides abstractions over the hardware and provides APIs for each program/process.
gollark: Oh, new suggestion: uʍop ǝpᴉsdn sᴉ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ʎW.
gollark: SPUDNET would have security implications, as its security model doesn't match with what HeavOS's could be.
gollark: I mean, as I said, it would be much easier to have the server provide an API and stuff over websocket/HTTP thingies instead of messing with routing everything via SPUDNET.

References
  1. Battaglio, Stephen (2010). David Susskind: A Televised Life, pp. 89–92. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-38286-5
  2. Roald Dahl Narrative analysis Haegenburgh, E. 2015.
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