Who's Life Is It Anyways

The theatre function works as a place where through fictional stories; characters debate or discuss social issues. Different characters represent different views which shape our thoughts and provoke the ideological conflict in our minds. Two key problems that arise through theme in the play are: The right to choose between life and death and also when to be professional and when to be personable.

There is an ethical issue in the play whether an insane person has the right to take his life or not. The debate between pro-choice vs pro-life is a social problem that Clark brings to the stage.
Dr Emerson makes a ruling based on his professional medical power, “Because Mr Harrison is incapable of living outside the hospital and it is in my duty as a doctor to preserve life”. This shows us the value’s that Dr Emerson as a doctor has as he believes it is in his responsibilities to do everything in his power to keep Ken and his patients alive.
Clark then demonstrates a conflicting value from Ken, “The cruelty is that the choice is removed from the person concerned. I would like to be able to decide what happen to my body”. It represents that Ken has decided to end his life as he can no longer pursue the things he wants, example being his sculptor career and that the doctors should respect his decisions.
Dr Emerson makes a professional claim, “His knowledge isn’t based on experience of a hundred such cases, and he can’t know enough to challenge our clinical decision”. Clark shows Dr Emerson has the knowledge and skills to know what is the right thing to do for his patient Ken, in this case to keep him alive to serve him ethically.
Clark shows a lack of professional acknowledgment when Ken states, “I chose to acknowledge the fact that I am in fact dead and I find this hospitals persistent effort to maintain this shadow of life an in-dignity and its inhumane”. This shows that Ken’s perspective is clear. He deems his life as finished. On the other hand, the...