TOW #8- IRB "The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, And The Making of The Oxford English Dictionary"

Simon Winchester is not trying to examine the impact the The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) had on the English language, but rather he attempts to show the major impact the dictionary had on the people involved with it .  The purpose changes many times throughout the novel, but in the latter half, Winchester emphasizes how much it had helped both Doctor Minor and Murray.  Winchester uses contrast in character personalities from the beginning of the story to show the impact of the dictionary on the people's lives.  In the beginning, we can remember that Minor and Murray were two completely different people, living completely separate lives.  However, Winchester slowly builds throughout that they become more than simply beings on the same planet.  He writes that Murray says to Minor's doctor that, "...Minor was 'my friend,' and said later he was distressed at how frail he seemed, at how the light and energy that had marked him in his dictionary-busy days of the previous decade seemed now to have deserted him" (195).  Murray notices even before the doctor that Minor's condition is continuing to decline, since he hasn't been involved with the OED.  The dictionary had saved Minor for part of his life, someone who may even be considered to have life at its worst.  If Minor could be positively influenced by something as basic as thee dictionary, clearly it was not so basic of a thing.

Winchester continues to emphasize this friendship when the doctor continues to disregard Minor's signs of physical and mental failure.  When the doctor tried to brush them off, Winchester says "But neither Sir James nor Lady Murray was mollified: It was imperative, they said, that their scholar-genius friend now be allowed to go home to America..." (198).  This friendship would not have occurred if it were not for the OED.  The Murray family is fighting for Minor's well-being, since his family seems to not be there for him.  The dictionary created a family of sorts, all through the love of the English language.  Winchester effectively shows his audience by the end of the novel that The Oxford English Dictionary is much much more than a compilation of every English word ever known.