Denis Johnson Emergency

In the short story “Emergency” by Denis Johnson, Georgie and FH work at an Iowa hospital emergency room. The main characters Georgie and FH are representing the American society during the Vietnam War. They are portraying how America was in a real state of “Emergency” and in need of urgent help. Georgie and FH are completely blinded by how drugs are.affecting them. At some point, FH mistakes a drive-in for a cemetery, he thought the speakers were military tombstones, until Georgie points out that he is mistaken. This shows how society was unaware of what was truly happening in Vietnam, until it was no longer deniable. In a sense the American people were blind, they failed to see how being in the Vietnam War would bring bad outcomes. The tombstones that FH saw represent the many lives that was lost during the Vietnam War. The fact that FH did not acknowledge how bad his drug addiction was, is a representation of how society did not realize how deep in the war they were in. The longer FH takes drugs, the harder it will be to stop being a drug user. This applies to how the President kept the U.S in War, the longer we stayed the harder it became to retreat. At first FH seems to be sane but it’s later revealed that he is influenced by drugs which causes him to hallucinate which also happens to Georgie. Georgie
These characters are used to portray how the American society was in need of assistance because of how broken and damaged it is. It was divided between those who would protests against the war, and those who would support it blindly. According to John Nizalowski, he writes that society is empty and has more problems than just drug addictions. Drug experimenting was not the biggest problem of the late nineteenth century. The characters in the short story, represent the American society as a whole because they represent both sides on the standing point with regards to the