'Gothic Feelings In Denis Johnson's Emergency'

The theme to Denis Johnson’s “Emergency” gives a sense that shows the reader the reality of an addict’s mind with a slight Gothic feeling. At the beginning of the story, Fuckhead seems to be just a worker at a hospital and he’s just fine mentally. When this story goes further, it shows that his friend, Georgie is obviously hallucinating that there is blood on the floor, but is just a figment of his imagination, and the floor is clean but Fuckhead plays along with Georgie. A bit later in the story, Georgie is obsessed about the “peculiar sound” coming from his shoes, the shoes giving off the imaginary squeak sounds but Fuckhead hears nothing. This story gives off a recurring gory feel in the sense that there is mention of blood throughout “Emergency,” Georgie is mopping up imaginary blood, a patient comes in with a hunting knife in his eye, Georgie cuts up a pregnant rabbit. Due to this, Denis Johnson’s story has a bit of a gory and gothic feel because there are some sad and ironic bloody parts in the story that give the reoccurring …show more content…
What looks like the military grave markers were actually drive-in theater speakers, all of them identical to each other in rows and columns. This dark scenery quickly changes into a glorious but scary appearance by Fuckhead seeing angels descending out of a “brilliant summer blue,” which turns out to be the theater screen (81). Georgie finally realizes that this landmark is a drive-in theater and Fuckhead does not understand what this means because he thought this was something else (81). Obviously, Fuckhead’s vision was completely altered and could not determine what this was. Along with my conclusion when Fuckhead sees the angels descending from heaven, Robert also sees and argues the same point that the angelic figures were just a projection on a blurred screen of a drive-in movie