The House of God

The Fat Man is the character within the hospital system who helps Roy the most. The Fat Man’s hands-off system at first seems to be somewhat callous, but it is revealed to be a more effective treatment philosophy than Jo’s more hands-on approach. Following the Fat Man’s advice is what wins Roy the Most Valuable Intern award. Furthermore, Roy eventually comes to realize that the Fat Man cares about patients and about the people in his neighborhood after discovering that he runs a private clinic in his house. The Fat Man also cares about the interns under his care. His obsession with an imaginary invention—a mirror that lets people examine their own anuses—proves to be just a way for him to bond with new interns and engage them. Roy’s insight into the Fat Man as “too much” indicates that he has chosen medicine because it’s a good fit for his intense personality—his intense absurdity is matched by an intense care for other people.

Berry is Roy’s girlfriend, whom he appears ready to propose to at the novel’s end. She is a clinical psychologist who tries to help Roy understand and deal with his emotions over the course of the book. He repeatedly rebuffs her, but she persists. She seems to view his dalliances with the nurses at the House of God as a regression to a childlike state to avoid having to face his inner turmoil. Despite her tolerance for his misbehavior, she does reach her limit during Roy’s rotation in the ICU. Her character, with an emphasis on the mind’s function and health, counterweights Roy’s emphasis on the body’s function and health during most of the book. 

Chuck is the intern who is closest to Roy during their year working together. A black man from Memphis, Chuck is seemingly laid-back and practices medicine more intuitively than Roy, especially when Roy struggles at the beginning of his internship. All of Chuck’s accomplishments in his adult life (getting into college and medical school, and his medical internship) are the result of postcards that he receives in the mail simply requiring him to sign and return them. Still, he is a good fit for a medical career and decides to return home at the end of his internship year to “get back in shape, find a black woman, be a regular old black doc with a lotta money and a big bad lim-O-zeene. And that’ll jes’ about do it for old me” (353). 

As another resident who supervises the interns, Jo serves as a foil to the Fat Man. She is uptight, tense, and a workaholic who has failed to craft an identity outside of her job. She’s serious and believes in aggressive—and to Roy’s mind, overly invasive—medical care, and Roy struggles to find any kind of connection with her.

Gillheeny and Quick’s presence in the novel seems at first to be comic relief—the two issue complex, often antiquated statements, like “We can hardly wait to hear from a Rhodes Scholar like yourself, a man with high qualities of body and mind, with experience gleaned from corners of the round globe, like England, France, and the Emerald Isle” (112), and “Happy holiday greetings to you, Dr. Roy, and I expect that in the lap of your family, with your girlfriend in the lovely red Volvo, you have had a wonderful time” (177). Later in the book, however, their revelation that they’re going to become lay analysts based on their interactions with the hospital’s various psychiatrists demonstrates that they’re also meant to highlight the importance of psychological understanding, rather than merely practicing medicine in terms of the physical body. 

Molly is depicted as innocently girlish yet sexually sophisticated. Like Roy, she’s concerned with the body, as expressed through her association with the hospital and her sexual relationship with Roy. In this way, she serves as a foil to Berry, who is oriented more toward the mind and psychology. The only emotional complexity she has is a guilt complex from being taught by Catholic nuns.