ENCW 101 Spring 2019

A main theme of Ron Rash’s “Chemistry” is the exploration of the dichotomy between modern science and the mysticism of religion.  The story, which follows the aftermath of a man’s institutionalization for depression and subsequent release, is told through the eyes of the man’s son, Joel.  Joel’s father is given pills to take to treat what the reader later finds out is depression, but he refuses to take them. Ironically, Joel’s father is a high school chemistry teacher, a person who should understand that taking medication for depression is an important step in many people’s recovery.  This irony is present throughout the story, first noted by the doctor who treated Joel’s father:

“‘All he needs is a hobby,’ Dr. Morris said, patting my father’s back as if they were old friends, ‘to keep his mind off his mind.’  The doctor laughed and straightened his tie, added as if an afterthought, ‘and the medicine, of course.’ Dr. Morris patted my father’s back again. ‘A chemistry teacher knows how important that is.’”

Throughout the story, Joel watches his father struggle between understanding depression through science, as nothing more than a chemical imbalance that can be rectified with pills and lifestyle change, and through the lens of Pentecostalism.  Joel follows his father to a mid-week church service, and sees him rise to be “healed” by the congregation, speak in tongues, and snake-handle. Afterwards, Joel’s father explains his behavior by saying,

“There was a time I could understand everything from a single atom to the whole universe with a blackboard and a piece of chalk, and it was beautiful as any hymn the way it all came together… What I’m trying to say is that some solutions aren’t crystal clear.  Sometimes you have to search for them in places where only the heart can go.”

The message is tender but ironic, and reveals just how much Joel’s father was affected by his depression for it to have made him change his whole way of viewing the world.  Another layer of irony in this story is that, for most people, tragedy makes them turn the other way and become less religious, not more.

Joel’s father dies while scuba diving.  The coroner says it was caused by nitrogen narcosis, which induces delirium and is why Joel’s father removed his scuba mask while still underwater.  However, Joel’s father was struggling to breathe long before his final dive, illustrated by a poetic scene that describes what led to Joel’s father’s institution:

“In March Mr. Keller, the vice principal, had found my father crouched and sobbing in the chemical storage room, a molecular model of oxygen clutched in his hands…”

The tense switches to the present as Joel describes how he sometimes goes down to the lake house and looks at the water where his father drowned.  Though he says that the “coroner is probably right,” it’s easy for him to “imagine that [his] father pulling off the mask was something more,” as the darkness—both literal and metaphorical, as his father told him he was likely going to have the same struggle with depression—settles around him.