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Talk:Medicine Melancholy

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I had a few hours to kill in the school library earlier, so I tracked down the title story of 'A Medicine for Melancholy'. It's a weird story written in a fairy-tale like style. I didn't see any similarities between the character and the story, but I scribbled down a summary anyway:

The daughter of the Wilkes family, Camellia, is deathly ill. No one is able to diagnose her precise ailment, and can only say that she's "not well" and "doing poorly", which is obvious. Many physicians have been consulted and many 'sovereign remedies' tried, but to no avail.
The story begins as the latest unsuccessful physician departs the Wilkes house. The parents talk enigmatically of 'bringing the Dustman up', but the younger brother Jamie has another suggestion; move Camellia and her bed outside, so that passerby on the busy street outside may offer medical advice; one of them is bound to be right, after all. At their wits' end, the family decides to do so.
One of the first visitors is a gaunt woman who intones "Vapors. Lung-flux. A medicine for melancholy is needed." She recommends powdered mummy, and bids them come to her shop later. Another visitor is a girl who walks up and stares at Camellia, seeming to know what ails her... but when pressured to reveal it, she flushes and runs off after giving Camellia a look of "deepest sympathy."
Late at night, Mr. Wilkes has collected two hundred remedies from the mob. But there is one final visitor; a Dustman "...of no particular size or shape, his face masked with soot from which shone water-blue eyes and a white slot of an ivory smile." He has one piece of advice; leave Camellia out in the light of the full moon that will rise this night. Mrs. Wilkes is doubtful, but Camellia herself wants to try it. The family leaves her and her bed outside.
When the moon rises, a well-dressed man with a lute steps out of the shadows. He converses with Camellia, telling her he knows her illness. First he lists the symptoms: "Raging temperatures, sudden cold, heart fast then slow, storms of temper, then sweet calms, drunkenness from having sipped only well water, dizziness from being touched only thus-" He them diagnoses: "The name of the ailment is Camellia Wilkes."
Cue bed-warming and other sexual allegories, though nothing too explicit. Also it's revealed that the troubador is the Dustman. (The Dustman? A Dustman? The story used both particles.)
Come morning, Camellia is well again. "The sovereign remedy," she murmurs in her sleep. "A medicine for melancholy." When she awakens, she asks her mother and father to dance with her. "Celebrating they knew not what, they did."

So yeah. The only connection I noticed is that, from the spartan description we're given of them, Medicine could be said to resemble the Dustman/Dustmen. She isn't covered in dust and soot, though. Maybe she's based on a different story in the volume?

I've written a lot of book analyses, so here we go...
The main theme of many of Bradbury's works is alienation, and this story is no exception. Camillia finds herself constantly barraged with cures by a society that does not care at all for her, and only finds a true cure in a man outcast by that same society.
To begin with, we have the physician and the family arguing over remedies, yet Camillia herself is quiet. Then we are given a few lines from her, but what are they? Merely facts, a list, the length of illness, her appearance, effects, and outcome (death). Perhaps later a postmortem?
Next, they discuss taking her out into the street, to ask the public for remedies. Camillia's only line is morbid, that she may as well die outside as inside, and yet no one reacts. In fact, the only reply is from her father, who both rebukes her and proceeds to go ahead with their plan. And what happens in the street? Even as Camillia withers, the family makes her into a show, a business of selling the chance to give opinions.
Finally, she is abandoned, alone, under the moon, the family choosing this remedy for the simple fact that it will "...cost us not one penny of the four hundred we collected this day..." (from Camillia's own suffering). And this is the turning point of the story.
Upon whose advice was it that she be abandoned? The Dustman. And who is this Dustman? The brother names him early in the story, saying he cured the same affliction "four hundred years ago" and then says they cannot call him. Why is this so? The Dustman is unusual. He comes long after the crowds have disappeared, he is mentioned with apprehension, he alone is shown respect by the family, his cure alone is accepted. The man is abnormal, powerful, he does not fit in; he is an outsider, an outcast, he is not of this world. To deal with such a man, to be tainted by him, to accept his advice is desperation.
And yet he knows the cure for Camillia.
What do we know of Camillia? She is withering, she is diseased, she is her symptoms. To be Camillia Wilkes is to be an actor; playing this role of "sick and dying girl". The Dustman sees this, he knows. And he knows why. Those who love her know her disease, her tragic figure; they do not see the girl beneath. Camillia cannot abandon it, fearing she can only be the central figure, the protagonist, in her own life as "Camillia the afflicted". So what does the Dustman do? He strips her of this disease, this role, leaving her flushed, trembling, cold, naked before the moon and the world. He has exposed her true heart to the world. And now he accepts her, warms her, he loves and makes love to her, not Camillia the role but Camillia the girl.
At the end, Camillia is found by her family. But who is this girl? "Roses in her cheeks", "peaches, persimmons!", this is not the same child they abandoned to die under the moon! Where is "Melancholy" the girl they knew and loved? Camillia Wilkes is here, and no one knows her.
The main connection is the theme of abandonment and its cure. Abandoned to a man outside her society, Camillia is cured, and abandoned by her owner, Medicine Melancholy comes to life. Both of them find themselves to no longer be a part of the world they knew before, Camillia as her true self is no longer recognizable, and Medicine has become a feared enemy for those who once loved her. The "Medicine for Melancholy" is a deliverance and a poison; it ressurects you as your true self, yet destroys all connections with your previous life.
Well, this is my feeling, anyway. Oreng3 00:44, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

______

I'm interested to hear where the theory of the small doll is the real medicine melancholy originates.


Where does this whole Medicine-Eirin connection come from? I've seen it hinted among fans, so it had to have started SOMEWHERE.

From Medicine's ending in PoFV.--Nietz 23:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Should that be added on there then? *exasperated*

Yuuka and Medicine

I'm looking at the relationships area and I'm seeing Yuuka there but I'm not seeing any real evidence to back this up from PMISS or PoFV anyone else got some evidence as I'm tempted to drop a [CITATION NEEDED] down because I'm unsure if that's fanon leaking into the main page or not. Zelinko (talk) 12:48, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Timestamp the stream used as source

There is a 9 hour long livestream used as source when talking about Medicine being close to Alice. Knowing that this is surprising (to say the least) I think it would be good to (better) source it, putting the exact or near timestamp after or before ZUN's quote. PassingStrike (talk) 15:59, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I decided to delete the reference and the phrase it was alluding to, as I think the stream was too informal to be considered a source of any claim by ZUN. PassingStrike (talk) 20:37, 25 January 2024 (UTC)