Denis Johnson Background

Emergency

Key Words and Info

Themes Questions

Denis Johnson’s Emergency

http://www.podcast.de/episode/3429148/Tobias%2BWolff%2Breads%2BDenis%2BJohnson/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK31JPnSWeg

Denis Johnson

• Born July 1, 1949• Munich, West Germany• Novelist, Poet, and

Playwright• Fought addiction and

alcoholism (quitting drinking in 1978 and drugs in 1983)

Brief Questions

• Besides writing short stories, novels, and plays, what else does he write?

• What did he battle throughout his life?

• Where was he born?

Emergency

• Published in collection of short stories, Jesus’ Son

• Published in 1992• Stories deal with

addiction, petty crime, and murder

• Narrated by troubled untrustworthy narrators (might just be one)

Emergency• Told in the First-Person

(I)• Narrator is drug addict

who works for hospital• Narrator is friends with

orderly who steals drugs• Story follows their

adventures once released for work (after dealing with someone who was stabbed with a knife in the eye)

Characters

• Narrator (FH): a clerk at the hospital

• Georgie: the Orderly, Narrator’s friend

• Nurse• Hardee: AWOL,

leaving to Canada

Key Words and Info

Key Information• The Draft: Many tried to

escape to Canada to avoid being drafted for war

Key Words• Coronary-unit: Department

of hospital in charge of heart-related issues

• Quivering: shaking• AWOL: desertion• Extraterrestrial: Alien• ICU: Intensive Care Unit• Orderly: a hospital worker

who does grunt work for doctors and/or nurse (sets up room, cleans after surgery, moves bodies, etc.)

Literary Devices

• Imagery: any language that appeals to the five senses (visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory)

• Symbolism: an object or thing that represents an abstract idea larger than the object or thing

• Irony: when the reality is not what one would expect

Questions

• What is the Draft? And why did people want to avoid it?

• What does an orderly do?

• What is irony?

Themes

• Seeing– Are there things we see that we shouldn’t?– Do we see everything in front of us or is there stuff that

is hidden?• Imagination vs. Reality• Saving Lives– What does it mean to save lives?

• Human’s Goodness– Are human’s innately (naturally) good people?

• Being on the margin of society

Questions

• What are two of the major themes of this text?

• How might the drug aspects and imagination vs. reality theme relate to the author, Denis Johnson?

• What key word might someone be doing if they were caught AWOL?