The House of God

In The House of God, young female bodies—those of nurses and patients—are often sexualized. Updike’s statement in the Introduction about nurse-doctor sex being a “relief” for both parties suggests that Shem intends the erotic connotations to signal healthy life, vitality, and energy. Such associations contrast with the overwhelming sense of death, illness, and fear that the rest of the book imparts. Shem uses the male erotic gaze on female bodies as a way of representing intense life-force, so to speak, since sex usually has a life-giving and/or pleasurable effect, and presents it alongside the intense death-force depicted in the rest of the book. Roy comments that, in the ICU, “Amidst the dying, these nurses were flaunting life” (282). Ultimately, of course, the life-giving qualities of the sexual activity in the book are not enough to overcome the deathliness of practicing medicine for Roy—only the study of the mind is presented as being able to do that.  

As one of the most visible signs that a person practices medicine, the stethoscope is an important symbol in The House of God. Various characters’ use of the stethoscope indicates their relationship to and status within the medical system. The Fat Man uses his stethoscope in a way it wasn’t intended when he uses the “reverse stethoscope” method on Anna, indicating his subversive role within the established medical system.