Little Albert: The Voiceless Infant Who Became an Experiment

Overview

Little Albert is the name given to a nine‑month‑old infant used by psychologist John B. Watson in his famous 1920 classical‑conditioning experiment. In American Melancholy, Joyce Carol Oates reclaims this historical figure by giving him a poetic voice. The title poem of the collection's fourth chapter, "Little Albert, 1920," is a first‑person account that rewrites the scientific record from the subject's perspective. Rather than remain a passive data point, Oates's Albert addresses the reader directly, recounting the two filmed sessions and questioning the ethical foundations of behavioral psychology. This character analysis draws exclusively on the poem's text and the collection's stated themes; no external historical sources beyond what the poem itself reveals are used.

Plot Role

In the poem, Little Albert serves as both narrator and symbol. He describes his initial fearlessness—reaching for a white rat, unafraid of a burning newspaper, a monkey, a dog, or a rabbit—and then the moment of conditioning: a loud clang produced by Watson striking a metal pipe with a hammer. The second session, one month later, shows the baby now shrinking from the rat and other stimuli. The experiment is never de‑conditioned, and Albert reveals that he died of hydrocephalus at age six. The poem's final stanzas pivot to a direct question: "You were Little Albert? You were conditioned / to fear and hate?" This turns the reader from observer into potential participant, collapsing the distance between subject and audience.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

The poem explicitly states Albert's traits as observed in the film: "curious" and "fearless." His actions—staring intently, reaching for the rat—demonstrate an infant's natural and open engagement with the world. After conditioning, his behavior shifts to wariness and distrust: he "shrank away," his face showed "terror." The poem emphasizes that these emotional responses were instilled from outside, not innate. The infant's motivation is simply to explore; the experiment erases that drive. Oates interprets this change as a fundamental violation of the infant's bodily and psychological integrity. The poem also implies that Albert's later death from hydrocephalus may be tragic coincidence, but the unanswered question of his "remainder of life" underscores the lifelong damage that began in the lab.

Chronological Arc

The poem follows a tight chronology:

First experiment (1920): Albert, nine months old, sits on a lab table in a white cotton nightie. He is shown various stimuli (burning newspaper, monkey, dog, rabbit, rat, Santa mask) and reacts without fear. When he reaches for the rat, Watson strikes a metal pipe behind his head. Albert is terrified, tries to crawl away, and is restrained.
Second experiment (one month later): Albert is now wary. The rat is again presented; he shrinks away in terror. Watson repeats the clanging sound. The poem notes that fear generalizes to other objects (fur coat, Santa mask).
Aftermath: Watson never de‑conditions Albert. No other psychologist intervenes. Albert dies at age six from hydrocephalus.
Present tense address: The poem ends by asking the reader whether they, too, have been conditioned, and whether they are "Little Albert, who died young."

The arc moves from innocence to conditioned terror, then to death, and finally to a universalizing question that bridges the 1920s with the present.

Relationships

The poem identifies key figures:

John B. Watson: The experimenter who "struck a metal pipe with a hammer" and "would not be allowed to terrorize" Albert today. He is portrayed as indifferent to the infant's distress, motivated by fame and the advancement of behavioral psychology.
Albert's mother: She received "but one dollar for the use of me." The poem suggests she was complicit only through poverty, not cruelty.
The reader: Addressed directly as "you." The relationship is confrontational: "Remember me? Sure. / You do." The reader is implicated as a witness who watched the famous film and never asked whether Albert was later helped or healed.

The poem creates no further relationships; Albert's isolation is total. He has no family or friends in the narrative—only the experimenters and the camera.

Key Decisions and Consequences

The central decision in the poem is Watson's choice to condition an infant and then never reverse the conditioning. The consequence is a life, however short, lived in fear of softness, sudden movements, and sounds behind the head. The poem asks: "What was the remainder of my life?" and answers only with the fact of Albert's early death. The key decision for the reader—implied by the poem's final stanzas—is whether to remain a passive consumer of such experiments or to recognize one's own conditioning. The poem suggests that the failure to de‑condition Albert was not merely a scientific oversight but an ethical catastrophe that the field of psychology has yet to fully acknowledge.

Theme and Symbol Connections

The character of Little Albert resonates with several major themes in American Melancholy:

Ethics of Scientific Authority: The poem directly critiques the power imbalance between researcher and subject, especially when the subject is a helpless infant. It questions whether "ours is an ethical age" or whether the experiment could still happen under different guises. Explore the ethics of scientific authority.
Memory and Forgetting: Albert's story is preserved on film but his personhood was forgotten. The poem forces a re‑remembering. Read about memory and forgetting.
Violence and Complicity: The act of conditioning is depicted as a form of violence—"who was there / to stop him?" The reader's complicity as a viewer is highlighted. See violence and complicity themes.
Mortality and Physical Decay: Albert's death from hydrocephalus is presented without sentimentality; the body that was experimented on ultimately fails. Learn about mortality and physical decay.
Art as Witness and Response: By giving Albert a voice, Oates uses poetry to bear witness to a historical injustice and to imagine the inner experience that science erased. Discover art as witness and response.

Symbol: The small white rat symbolizes an object of natural curiosity that is turned into an object of terror. The metal pipe and hammer represent the arbitrary power of the experimenter to inject fear into the world.

Book-Specific Questions and Answers

Why does the poem begin with "I was Little Albert" rather than "I am"?
The past-tense "was" underscores that Albert is dead; the poem speaks from beyond the grave. It also signals that his identity is fixed in history as a subject, yet the poem resurrects him to challenge that static record.
What is the significance of the film mentioned in the poem?
The poem repeatedly says "you saw" on film. The film created a permanent visual record that allowed generations to watch Albert's terror without intervention. Oates uses the film as a metaphor for passive witnessing and the ethical failure of spectatorship.
How does Oates connect Little Albert to the reader's own life?
In the final stanzas, the poem asks directly: "You were Little Albert? You were conditioned / to fear and hate?" This forces the reader to consider whether they have been taught to fear what they might otherwise love—a parallel to societal conditioning regarding race, class, or identity.
Does the poem suggest that John Watson was a villain?
The poem does not reduce Watson to a caricature. It acknowledges that "things are different now" and that Watson "would not be allowed to terrorize" Albert today. However, it also emphasizes that Watson never de‑conditioned the infant, and that his fame rests on an unrepaired harm. The tone is condemnatory but also soberly historical.
What role does the detail of Albert's death at age six play?
The detail that Albert died of hydrocephalus (water on the brain) at age six is presented without causal link to the experiment, but it underscores the brevity and fragility of his life. The poem contrasts the scientific "data" with the human reality: a child who never grew up, whose life after the experiment is unknown and unbearable to contemplate. It completes the arc from experiment to erasure.