Ethics In George Saunders Escape From Spiderhead

When defining an action or mode of thought as right or wrong, it may be deemed moral if it aligns to personal or cultural definitions of those standards. Ethics, however, are universal, without ties to any specific culture or religion. In his short story, “Escape from Spiderhead”, George Saunders explores the concept of ethics in our society as it pertains to science and the treatment of test subjects, specifically those who have been incarcerated. Jeff, the narrator, is a convicted murderer serving time in a pharmaceutical testing facility instead of a traditional prison. These drugs can make Jeff and the other inmates do or feel anything, from an intense appreciation of nature (courtesy of ED763 or NatuGlide) to love. The focal experiment

of the story uses ED289/290, a drug that creates and removes romantic and physical attraction. Under the influence of ED289/290, Jeff falls in love with two inmates named Heather and Rachel. It is later revealed that the women also fell in love with two other men named Rogan and Keith that same day. Jeff usually is cooperative during the trials; however, when confronted with the possibility of killing again—to test whether his attraction toward Rachel and Heather has completely disappeared—he begins to question whether the results of the experiments are worth the risk for he and the other people involved. Through cleverly devised symbols, including the characters themselves, Saunders creates an examination of ethics and differing types of morality, in which it is concluded that the importance of scientific advancement should not outweigh that of individual lives.

At the core of “Escape from Spiderhead” lies the essential question of scientific progress as it relates to morality.

Saunders explores this concept by presenting the reader with two characters: Jeff, a criminal, and Abnesti, the head scientist of the testing facility. Abnesti is introduced as a nonchalant, goal oriented scientist. To test the effectiveness of ED289/290, he threatens to use Darkenfloxx™ on the subjects’ former romantic partners. Darkenfloxx™ is a drug of torture. It floods the brain with an overwhelming amount of negative emotions. It is so potent in its effect that it is worse than if one were to “imagine the worst you have ever felt, times ten” (56). At first this is simply a bluff, yet when he is told to actually administer the drug, he recognizes the order merely as a slightly unpleasant turn of events. After Heather unexpectedly dies after only five minutes of Darkenfloxx™-inflicted torture, his excuse is, “This is science. In science we explore the unknown. It was unknown what five minutes on Darkenfloxx would do to Heather. Now we know” (72). As well as serving as the story’s main antagonist, Abnesti is symbolic of scientific progress in general. The Darkenfloxx™ incident, especially, paints him as an unsympathetic man with a stubborn moral code, but his definition of morality emphasizes the “group”—or society at large—over the individual prisoners whom he experiments on. Despite this, Abnesti is not altogether evil. He reminds Jeff, “When a certain

individual got athlete’s foot on his groin on a Sunday, did a certain other individual drive over to Rexall and pick up the cream, paying for it with his own personal money?” (68). This duality of kindness and apathy toward the inmates represents the duality of right and wrong in scientific study. Atrocities are constantly committed under the name of science, but at the same time science is viewed as generally beneficial to the common good. Abnesti’s self-righteousness is his justification for killing Heather and Rachel. He believes that if he is a good man, it must mean that he always does the right thing.

Jeff, on the other hand, is a vehicle through which the author counters this debate. He acts as a foil for Abnesti, both in his beliefs and in his past as a criminal. Jeff and Abnesti are on opposite ends of a spectrum. As a result, Jeff’s moral code and Abnesti’s reject each other. Jeff is a symbol of justice instead of progress. Abnesti would do anything for his experiments, even if the results are unethical. Jeff’s views clash with this idea because killing or hurting others would undo the distance he has placed between his current self and his past mistake. When he killed Mike Appel he felt as though he were possessed or under the influence of something like “TemperBerst,” “InstaRaje”, or “LifeRooner” that set him on his current path (77). Regretful of that “fateful day,” as those at the facility repeatedly call it, Jeff does not wish to finish the experiment; however, Abnesti ignores his wishes and calls for permission to “Docilryde™” him. Administering this drug would render Jeff completely obedient, “smiling agreeably the way a person smiles on Docilryde™” (76). Abnesti would go to such lengths because his moral code permits it, but Jeff wants nothing more than to repent his actions through pacifism. He realizes that if he were not alive, Abnesti would have no reason to kill Rachel. Rather than let himself become a murderer yet again, he uses Darkenfloxx™ to commit suicide. It is through this sacrifice that he is able to redeem himself for his past actions, providing evidence against Abnesti’s belief in the superiority of the “greater good”.

This stance on morality, that the whole should not be privileged over a few, is represented symbolically in the end of the story. Jeff’s suicide exemplifies his triumph over Abnesti’s overly-utilitarian moral code. As “Spiderhead” is written in first person point of view, the use of language offers important insight into Jeff’s mind as well as the story itself. Normally Jeff is curt in his narration, only able to describe his feelings in simplistic terms. While under the influence of Verbaluce™, his descriptions become heavily detailed, which is a departure from his usual manner of speaking. Verbaluce™ is used to “pep up your language centers”, allowing Jeff and the other inmates to speak “in elevated diction, with eighty-percent increased vocab” (48). While Jeff is under the influence of both ED289/290 and Verbaluce™, he is able to describe his feelings toward Heather more eloquently. He describes his feelings as “astonishment at the dawning realization that this woman was being created in real time, directly from [his] own mind, per [his] deepest longings. Finally, after all these years (was [his] thought), [he] had found the precise arrangement of body/face/mind that personified all that was desirable” (49), but after the Verbaluce™ wears off, the most detail he can muster is, “Basically, everything began to dwindle” (51). Using the word “dwindle”, the reader is left to infer his exact meaning because the word is not particularly clear. Verbaluce™ imbues his prose with a lucidity so precise that no other explication is necessary. At the end of the story Jeff assumes there must be Verbaluce™ mixed into his drip because he is easily able to describe his complex feelings. His revelation, that “this was all me now” (80) represents freedom from the constraints of his life as a criminal. He is no longer trapped by his mistakes, shown through his departure from simplistic diction. He does not need medication to be able to express his beliefs anymore, for his death frees his mind. His flight from the compound, as well, symbolizes redemption. He envisions himself flying among the birds, noting that “they did not recognize [him] as something apart from them” (81). He ties this observation to his feelings of triumph, stating that “for the first time in years, and forevermore, [he] had not killed, and never would (81). In choosing to end the story in this manner, Saunders gives more evidence for his stance on this ethical dilemma: the stand-off between Abnesti and Jeff, that of apathy and empathy toward the individual. He argues that Jeff is correct in choosing to die rather than to kill again, exemplified in both the shift in levels of diction and the symbolism of flight.

Saunders further illuminates his stance on the ethics of scientific study by using prison inmates as the story’s lead characters. Abnesti believes that whatever he does to the inmates is justified by their pasts, without taking into account how they feel or how they’ve changed since they committed their crimes. Jeff observes that Abnesti reprimands him “as if trying to remind [him] that [he] was not here by choice but because [he] had done [his] crime and was in the process of doing [his] time” (54). Saunders counters this opinion by offering contrasting views of the inmates’ behavior, Rachel in particular. Before her incarceration, Rachel committed a slew of bad deeds. Her file reveals that she had been in and out of rehab for drugs and prostitution and a thief. Despite being arrested repeatedly, “after that came her biggie: a triple murder—her dealer, the dealer’s sister, the dealer’s sister’s boyfriend” (75). The “Rachel” who Jeff and, therefore, the reader are familiar with seems entirely different from who she was before prison. Oblivious to her role in the Darkenfloxx™ experiment and believing herself unobserved in the Workroom, she dances “a happy little shuffle, like she was some cheerful farmer chick who’d just stepped outside to find the hick she was in love with coming up the road with a calf under his arm or whatever” (78). Watching this, Jeff concludes that the sole reason she does this is because she is “just alive, I guess” (78). Rachel is a murderer who committed triple homicide, a drug addict, and a woman who stole money and jewelry from her own family. Yet, she is presented in a benign and innocent manner. This is to evoke sympathy from the audience and characterize the inmates as more than just their crimes. Inmates are chosen as main characters because Saunders wants the reader to recognize that despite their crimes, they are still people worthy of just treatment. The inmates are not any lesser just because they have been incarcerated. They have killed, but they do not necessarily have to die.

This belief is expanded upon through the theme of predetermination versus free will. As he is dying, Jeff theorizes:
“At birth, they’d been charged by God with the responsibility of growing into total fuckups. Had they chosen this? […] No; and yet their crooked destinies had lain dormant within them, seeds awaiting water and light to bring forth the most violent, life-poisoning flowers, said water/light actually being the mental activation that would transform them (transform us!) into earth’s offal, murderers, and foul us with the ultimate, unwashable transgression” (79).
Jeff’s redemption comes from reconciling his murderous past with his present self. He is able to forgive himself in his final moments through his new-found belief in predetermination. He was destined to become one of “earth’s offal, murderers” (79). This musing, too, is designed to evoke sympathy from the reader and to make them partial to Jeff’s plight. The theme is also intertwined with the bird symbolism in the story’s ending. Birds, Jeff imagines, are each given “life-nectar”, which is passed into the world through the birds’ song, the exact manner of which is an “accident of beak shape, throat shape, breast configuration, brain chemistry: some birds blessed in voice, others cursed; some squawking, others rapturous” (80). The way the birds sing is a coincidence of biology, from the configuration of their bodies. Just as some birds are “cursed” and others are “blessed”, some people are cursed with a destiny of crime while others will never fall from grace. This, combined with Jeff’s symbolic redemption and flight through death, presents an answer to the problems of ethics ingrained in “Escape from “Spiderhead”. Some are inherently born to commit atrocities, but many will go their entire lives without committing a single crime punishable by law. Regardless, using a criminal as a lens enables Saunders to suffuse within the story a strong sense of moral direction. Ironically, the criminal is proven more ethical than Abnesti, a civilian.

In “Escape from Spiderhead”, George Saunders offers an examination of morality and justice.

Through themes of predetermination and redemption, the reader is able to conclude that the good of the whole (society) does not take precedent over the individual, no matter how disturbed their past. The ending of the story, especially, offers insight into this ethical plight. Using Darkenfloxx™ on himself, instead of Rachel, is how Jeff comes full-circle and forgives himself for killing Mike Appel. This redemption is integral to the story’s message, as it proves that anyone can overcome their past to do the right thing. Abnesti’s willingness to sacrifice the inmates for the “literally tens of thousands of underloving or overloving folks” that ED289/290 is aimed toward is thwarted. The story is optimistic in its resolution, which clearly represents Saunders’s views of the ethics of his subject matter. Despite this, the ending is left deliberately ambiguous. It ends without the reader seeing whether the experiments in the facility will end after Jeff sacrifices himself to save Rachel. Based on his beliefs and personality, it is likely that Abnesti will merely call upon Rogan or Keith to finish the experiment, with little to no resulting changes in his character or opinions. This, too, presents an ethical dilemma: can the sacrifice of one man change anything, and if not, were Jeff’s actions worth performing in the first place? From this one can conclude that his actions may not spur a

change. Jeff’s sacrifice could have been a waste. But in spite of this, it would have been worse for him to remain apathetic, like Abnesti. The ending’s ambiguity shows that redemption does not only come from succeeding in creating change, but also from the act of trying.