It is not right to not accept someone else’s choice if we don not agree with it, and I think that is the message that Brian Clark is putting forward in this play. It is all about choice.
This is how Brian Clark persuades us, the readers, that Ken’s choice is right:
Ken gets us on his side with, firstly, his colourful personality. The first few pages of the play portray this when he is making sexual jokes towards the younger nurse, Kay.
Nurse- “Wipe your hands and put the pillows behind Mr. Harrison; we don’t want to have him on the floor.”
Ken- “Have me on the floor sister please. Have me on the floor.”
Sometimes his jokes aren’t sexual, but insulting, directed towards himself.
“We went midnight skateboarding, the only problem was that I was the skateboard.”
These jokes give the impression that Ken is coping well. I think that he is feeling sorry for himself, but displaying it in a different way: using humour.
Another way Ken gets us on his side is through the sympathy we feel for him. For example, he doesn’t always feel humane and is sometimes ignored by the doctors due to their consistent role of putting on an act of professionalism.
But sometimes these people aren’t always the doctors. Ken gets very upset when Mrs. Boyle, a medical social worker, visits him. She comes to convince Ken he is capable of living a constructive life. This annoys Ken and he uses his well-known sarcasm and puts up a good argument.
Mrs. Boyle has just told Ken that her scientists can help him to operate a reading machine. This is Ken’s reply:
“Can I make a request for the first book? “How to sculpt with no hands.” And -:
“I really have absolutely not desire at all to be the object of scientific virtuosity.”
He then looses his patients with Mrs. Boyle. He feels strongly that the doctors are completely against him with their professionalism. He is irritated that he is never treated like a human being and doesn’t get any respect from them. This makes us feel very sorry for Ken, because everyone has the right to be treated as a human being.
“All you people have the same technique. When I say something really awkward you just pretend I haven’t said anything at all. You’re all the bloody same…Well there’s another outburst. That should be your cue to comment on the light-shade or the colour of the walls.”
“Of course you have upset me. You and the doctors with your appalling so-called professionalism, which is nothing more than a series of verbal tricks to prevent you relating to your patients as human beings”
This is one of Ken’s main aspects of wanting to die. He doesn’t want people’s sympathy because he finds it very insulting. He wants to die with dignity, and not to go on living with so much effort for so little result.
He also can get very frustrated at times, and this shows that he really says what he means. He is passionate about how he feels and is not afraid to speak about it.
“I say something offensive about you and you turn your professional cheek. If you were human, if you were treating me as a human, you’d tell me to bugger off. Can’t you see that this is why I’ve decided that life isn’t worth living? I am not human and I’m even more convinced by that by your visit than I was before, so how does that grab you. The very exercise of your so-called professionalism makes me want to die.”
This quote makes a great point of Kens, and is exactly what I have been explaining in this paragraph. That Ken feels inhumane because of the way he is treated. This leaves us readers on Ken’s side. Mrs. Boyle does not answer to this, and leaves.
Ken also mentions how the doctors are superior to the patients. This is because the doctors have power over him. The hospital can also administer drugs to him against his will, if they think it is good for him.
(After being injected) 'Doctor, I didn't give you permission to stick that needle in me.'
He can't defend himself and they have every right, apparently, to do whatever they feel necessary with no thought for his wishes. The word “stick” implies that is it a rough action, although it probably wasn't because he is a trained doctor and Ken is not putting up any opposition. I think it was the invasion of privacy and direct contradiction of his wishes that he objected to. This is just a small confrontation, but it is definitely a case of the authority versus Ken. Ken is losing.
The paragraph above shows another way of directing us, the readers, onto Ken’s side. By us seeing this scene, in the book and in the video, we get the impression that Dr. Emerson is in power and is going against Ken’s will. This makes him look evil. I do, however, doubt a qualified doctor would be that evil as he believes in preserving life no matter what. But Brain Clark portrays him this way, to get us onto Ken’s side with a cunning display of phraseology tricking.
“I suppose he [Doctor Emerson] will sweep in here like Zeus from Olympus, with his attendant nymphs and swains”
He is referring to the doctors as Gods, and Dr. Emerson, as the God of all Gods- Zeus. Alternately, he is referring to himself as an experiment or “vegetable.” For example, when Ken is told he may be transferred out of the “critical patients” ward, he says:
“You mean you only grow the vegetables here, the vegetable store is somewhere else.”
As you can see, Ken has no say in what he wants whatsoever, it is, to him, a constant battle to end his own life, which he may never win.
Also, the medical staff are omniscient, all-powerful and hold the power of life and death over him, Dr. Emerson, being the main principal. His regular attitude of being stubborn and inhospitable towards Ken defines his role in this play. The role of the bad guy. The rest of the medical staff typically follow this role. Although they just want the best for Ken and want to help, he cannot do anything without them or anything that they do not want him to do. They have physical power over him because he is incapacitated and cannot survive without their help, and they have mental power over him because the law is on their side. They are also aggressively cheerful which he feels is infringing his right to be miserable. All these collective terms class the medical staff as the opposition or the enemy. They are firmly marked as THEM not us. This segregation defines the sides and shows it as Ken vs. everyone else. I think this raises the topic of individualism vs. groups.
Another way Ken conveys us onto his side, is by his friendships with people. He treats John, Nurse Sadler, Sister and Dr. Scott with the dignity they cannot ever treat him with (with the exception of John). He also shows his kindness when he tells his girlfriend, Pat, to not bother coming to see him anymore, as it is not fair on her. He wants her to have a good life and not be stuck around looking after him.
“She wants babies. Real ones. Not ones that won’t ever learn to walk.”
This was an act of kindness beyond anything I have seen. If you or me were in Ken’s situation we would need someone to be there for us. Ken has thought of himself last, and let his girlfriend leave him.
The conflicting view to Ken’s battle to end his unhappiness is that of the doctors. They also thought that living is always better than dying, and again I think that is something that has to be considered for each situation. Whatever the motive, and however well meaning this was, the play is about one man fighting for his right to end a 'shadow of a life', against an authority who cannot give consent to him dying.
Doctors say they should always preserve life. Before I read this play I agreed with this statement. Now, my opinion has changed. I believe it is not a matter of life and death, but an issue of happiness and unhappiness, or more importantly, choice.
To sum everything up, the ways in which Brain Clark persuade the readers that Ken’s decision to die is right is by using Ken’s personality, his intelligence and the important quotes he voices, the conflicting view of the doctors and they way Brain portrays them as the “bad guys”, and most importantly, the matter of something that goes beyond life and death. The matter of Ken’s happiness.
Anyway, who is to say life is better than death?
