Awakenings

Awakenings

Characters:

Dr. Sayer

Dr. Sayer was a kind and polite men. He was about 40 and for him his work was all.

Dr. Sayer had been working for many years in a research staff, so when he looked for a job in a neurological cronical hospital, he said that he hadn't got experience in that field, but they needed him and hired him as cronical doctor. Living alone with his cronical patients, Dr Sayer had lost the joy of life because he tried to found a cure for his patients but he his efforts were useless. Dr. Sayer assembled all his mind on the medicine and the research and he forgot that he was a men, and such as that he had got feelings toward the other people. Only when he discovered a new medicine thet could cure the patients, he realized that the life around him was however flowing and he realized also that he had to understood the problems of the people who lived around him, in his work and outside.When he discovered that the medicin had failed, he remembered the feelings he had felt was still live in his mind.

Leonard

Leonard was a patient of the neurological cronical hospital. Since he was a child he had problems with his hands, and slowly he became paralythic. Leonard was he first patient that reacted at the stimulus that Dr, Sayer gave to the patients, in fact on him the doctor concentrated all his  efforts to find a cure. When the doctor found the cure, Leonard was the first who benefited of it and the first who had problems when the effects of the medicine got off. When Leonard awoke after his long "sleep", he discovered how the life is beautiful and how the normal people didn't notice it. He also fell in love with a girl but he realized that they couldn't live togheter happily because of his illness.

The story start with a flash back in America in 1930. Leonard is a child that has many problems with his hands, in fact they tremble and slowly he begin to don't move anymore. 30 years later in 1960, the story start again. Dr. Sayer is a doctor that is looking for a job and he find it in a neurological cronical hospital. After a few years, he discovers with another doctor, that  in 1930 there was an illness that hit the brain and the encephalite and that made the patients incapable to move and to do the normal things. Some patients died and some other fell in a catathonic state. So Dr. Sayer makes some experiments on his patients giving them some stimulus and he discovers that they react at the touch of another person or at the sound of a particular music. Leonard reacts better than other, so the doctor makes him see some alphabets letters and Leonard points out some letters that compose the name of his favourite writer. So the doctor discovesr that Leonard feels like an animal in a cage and that he is still live inside.

Some days later Dr. Sayer goes to a congress where is explained the discover of a new medicine, for people who have Parkinson's sickness, called "L-dopa"; so he thinks that the new medicine can be used  on his patients, too, and with the agreement of the family, Dr. Sayer gives the L-dopa to Leonard. After some attempt Leonard doesn't give reactions but when the doctor gives him the max dose, Leonard awakes as in a miracle. After few days, Leonard begins to do the normal things and the doctor tests his new ability: he is become a new person. Then he shows the change of Leonard in a conference and he receives money from the people. So with the agree of the director, he gives L-dopa at all the patients and they awake as Leonard. All the patients begin to speak and to move themselves, after some weeks, they want to go in a disco to enjoy themselves but Leonard remain in the clinicand there he meets a beautiful girl and they begin to speak. The awake isn't beautiful for all the patients: some discover that all them relatives are died and some discover that the wife or the husband has divorced from them. One day Leonard says that the people have forgot the joyful of life and the beautiful of the simplest things. Then Leonard wants to has a walk, but the doctor doesn't give him the permission and the guards stop him with the force and he gets angry against all the people that don't understand him. So Leonard is closed in a special room with all the other dangerous patients and he has some bad neurological crisis. The other patients are afraid of Leonard's beheve because they think that they can become as him. So the doctor tryes to give him the medicine but he get always worse: he's getting again to a catatonic state. Meanwhile the summer is finished and one day looking out from the window Dr. Sayer says that Summer was a season of miracle and rebirth but the medicine has failed, however the normal people have understood that the uman spirit must to be feed with the simplest thing. Then while all his patients are sleeping, he invites Lucy to has a walk with him: a simple thing, just as Leonard said.

Comment:

In my opinion the patients must to be helped, just as Dr. Sayer have done and they must to be considered as normal people, whitout discrimination and biases on them individuality, in fact even if they seem dye, they are live inside and they want to fight again their illness.