" (6-7) We are, in short, assaulted from all sides with evidence of corporate Amer-ica's obsession with productivity. The effect is cleverly achieved through a subtle, unob-vious, but increasingly clear way.
At the moment when Bill finally makes his way onto the subway, he can't remember who he is, where he's going, or why he wants to go there. Then things really begin to go downhill. His hands start to go numb and he begins to lose touch, symbolically as well as literally. His paralysis is progressive; he eventually ends up jobless, wheelchair-bound, and with no con-trol over his environment, being shuttled from doctor to exploitative doctor. Bill doesn't ever receive a diagnosis, but we must assume that the reason no physiological cause can be found is because Chalmers himself is an existential symptom of a sick society. The doctors don't find anything because they"re looking in the wrong places.
The more veiled cause of Chalmers" discomfort comes with a deeper level of symbolic meaning. Bill's social life barely exists: his wife is having an electronic affair, while he and his son communicate mainly by email. Bill's job is to process information of any sort, liter-ally, the more megabytes he processes, the greater his salary. His doctor, Dr. Petrov, was once able to make "definite diagnoses, and these were often quite correct. But with the vast increase in medical (and communication) technology, and with so many new considerations to take into account" (112) he no longer does. Increased quantities of information do not translate into increased knowledge. Bill's psychiatrist simply recommends higher and higher doses of Prozac or Pixel, which naturally has no effect.
There are various other points in the novel where Lightman engages in telling observa-tion. These moments can be funny, as when the doctors who are treating Chalmers stand in reverential awe before a new piece of medical machinery, a symbol of America's greatness.
