The Antidote

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death by suicide, child abuse,

“The photograph was what I remembered best. A hundred dapper hats floating over the men’s shocked faces, serene as clouds. When the market collapsed in 1929, billions of dollars vanished in a few hours. Then the drought years came, and the soil flew off. Dust blots out the sun at noon. Perhaps this is the next calamity—a collapse of memory.”

The Antidote speaks here of the photographs she has seen that depict the businessmen who, upon learning they had lost their fortunes in the stock market crash, chose to jump out of skyscrapers in order to die by suicide. These photos parallel the atrocities that will later be captured by Cleo Allfrey’s camera. The Antidote’s prediction that a “collapse of memory” will follow becomes true. Unlike many of the citizens of Uz, she recognizes that such a loss of memory is indeed a danger and not a boon.

“This is what I can do for people, I thought. This is my new purpose. I will take whatever they cannot stand to know. The memories that make them chase impossible dreams, that make them sick with regret and grief. Whatever they hope to preserve for the future. Whatever cargo unbalances the cart. Whatever days and nights they cannot absorb into their living. Whatever they wish to forget for a morning or a decade. I can hold on to anything, for anyone.”

The Antidote welcomes her work as a Vault, initially regarding it as a gift she can provide that others cannot. She speaks in banking metaphors that draw a parallel between the memories she holds and the way a financial bank operates: This establishes The Weight of Memory as a theme.

“Still, I won’t forget the true story of how my brother died. I won’t pay a prairie witch to put Frank out of my mind He still draws breaths inside me. I do not want to lose my brother a second time. I only visited a Vault once in my life—back when I was just a boy—and what I remember best is the ride home to Uz with Papa, how light I felt, holding on to the saddle horn for dear life. Once was enough to convince me that I never wanted to make another deposit to a witch.”

Here Harp explains that, even though he has experienced the advantage of having an unpleasant memory taken away by a Vault, he deliberately chooses not to remove the painful memory of his brother’s death by suicide. This indicates that Harp understands the value of such memories in a way that other citizens of Uz do not.