Escape from Spiderhead has a happy ending besides the suicide and murder of two characters within the novel. Even though these tragedies occurred, the moral victory gained by Jeff, the main character, is essential to his happy ending. The novel ends with Jeff's suicide when he injects himself with a fatal drug called Darkenfluxx that killed Heather a girl earlier in the novel.
Jeff was found guilty of murder and transferred from a prison to Spiderhead to be part of experimental drug studies as opposed to rotting in a prison cell. One of the studies completed while in Spiderhead was the ability to induce and extract love with drugs. Two of the subjects, or attendants in Spiderhead, were injected with a drug that caused them to experience true love for each other, however, when taken off the drug they had no feelings for each other at all. Enable to bring the drug to the public Spiderhead had to test it on the subjects to make sure they had no feelings for each other after both admit to having had feelings. Even though inhumane, the officials in Spiderhead thought the best way to ensure the subjects had no feelings for each other is to observe their reactions to the others torture.
This method lead to the death of Heather one of Jeff’s lovers and almost to the death of Rachel, if it wasn’t for Jeff’s suicide. Jeff had originally been admitted to Spiderhead because he was found guilty of murder and attended therapy and was used as a test subject as opposed to prison. I think that ultimately Jeff received a happy ending because he didn’t contribute to the killing of Rachel. He killed someone once before and couldn’t do it again so instead he rebelled and received a moral victory.
It is hard to admit that a story that ends in a suicide could be a happy ending, but like you said Jeff was happy because he had a moral victory. I think it was good that you looked at the story as a happy ending through Jeff's eyes because the story is completely centered on his thoughts and it seems the best way to understand the ending is through Jeff's point of view.
ReplyDeleteI think that even though Jeff felt that killing himself would stop them from hurting Rachel, just because he killed himself doesn't mean that the experiment isn't going to happen. At best I feel like he was only able to postpone the experiment.
ReplyDeleteJeff was definitely able to die comfortably, to the best of his ability. But like Madison said, if anything his demise wouldn't stop the tests it would simply lead to them being restarted from square one, and perhaps the new tests would have to be a whole lot more definitive than before, as they now have so much more to prove. But indeed, he reached a moral victory, a final peace within his own mind, and he definitely earned that. I just don't think that Spiderhead will necessarily follow suit.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tessa and Madison in that Jeff's suicide won't prevent the continuing of the tests, but I do think that his actions make a point. Rather than stand by idle as people are tortured by his "acknowledgement", Jeff makes a decision based on his moral belief that he would rather eliminate himself from participation than allow these people to be tortured. I think that you are correct in assuming it is a happy ending because Jeff dies knowing that despite his criminal past, he has finally made a decision that will positively impact someone else, even if it is just postponing the torture.
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