George's Marvelous Medicine

Medicine appears as a recurring motif. The first medicine to appear is Grandma’s original, prescribed medicine. In George’s view, this medicine is “quite useless” since it leaves Grandma “just as horrid after she’d had it as she’d been before” (12). George then resolves to make a new “magic medicine, a medicine no doctor in the world has ever made before” (12). George’s medicine acts as a central plot device, leading to Grandma’s growth and eventual disappearance. Along the way, it reveals the attitudes and motivations of the characters: George wants to use it to disrupt Grandma, Grandma wants the medicine to enhance power to dominate others, Mr. Kranky wants to sell the medicine for profit, and Mrs. Kranky views the medicine as a threat to their existing family life. In this context, the medicine is analogous to any technology or power which offers possibilities, but also comes with risks. That fact that George’s medicine, magic though it may be, fails to reform Grandma demonstrates that most problems cannot be solved simply by taking a dose of medicine or applying some other product.