Youth and Its Implications in "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" Anonymous 10th Grade

On the surface, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s "Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment" is a story about several troubled adults who are given the chance to go back to their youths and enjoy their former, more beautiful selves. The idea of youth in this story, however, is much deeper than that. Youth is used as a metaphor to represent psychological growth, recklessness, and human nature. This short story explores the idea that mistakes or errors inherently come with youth and even if one could go back in time, one would likely make the same mistakes.

First, youth is represented by psychological growth -- a period in life when one makes mistakes and learn lessons from those mistakes. This metaphor is illustrated in Dr. Heidegger’s choice of people for the experiment and the whole idea behind Dr. Heidegger’s experiment. Dr. Heidegger chooses three elderly people who have experienced some scandal or fall from fame in their lives. His whole motive behind this experiment is to see if these troubled people will actually learn from their big mistakes and correct them. This is shown when he says,"It would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in passing a second time through...