Genre
Medical history
Setting and Context
Primarily set in Dr. Sacks' clinic in the Bronx. Other locations include Los Angeles and the streets of New York.
Narrator and Point of View
Oliver Sacks, first person.
Tone and Mood
Ranges from somber to humorous to earnest and beyond. For the most part, the author maintains an optimistic perspective on his patients.
Protagonist and Antagonist
N/A.
Major Conflict
N/A.
Climax
N/A.
Foreshadowing
N/A.
Understatement
Reviewers have argued that Dr. Sacks understated his knowledge of neurological diseases in order to heighten the drama of some of his stories.
Allusions
N/A.
Imagery
See this guide's separate section on imagery.
Paradox
The author proposes a paradox at the end of his chapter on "The President's Speech": “Here then was the paradox of the President’s speech. We normals -- aided, doubtless, by our wish to be fooled, were indeed well and truly fooled (‘Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur’). And so cunningly was deceptive word-use combined with deceptive tone, that only the brain-damaged remained intact, undeceived” (84). He also writes that diseases of neurological excess force their victims into a cruel paradox: to be cured, they must decide to extinguish the part of themselves that made them feel alive and happy.
Parallelism
The author on occasion draws parallels between his work of recording and telling the stories of others, and his patients, in turn, doing the same. In "The Possessed," for example, the super-Touretter whom Sacks observes is manically "putting on" and exaggerating the faces of every person who walks past her. In a warped way, Sacks is doing the same thing by turning his patients into characters in his own story.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
On occasion, Sacks uses the word "neurology" as a stand-in for the mass of individual neuroscientists conducting research in the field.
Personification
N/A.
