Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

The focus on hands in Carson’s memoir begins with his playing with his father’s hands, as young Carson tried “everything within the power of my small hands to make his veins stay down” (12). Hands return to prominence in the chapter on Carson’s “terrible temper” when Carson hits Jerry in the face “lock in hand”; when his “hand swung forward” to hit his mother, stopped only by Curtis’s intervention; when Carson hurled the rock that broke the nose and glasses of the neighborhood boy who had thrown a harmless rock at him; and when Carson “thrust the knife toward his [friend’s] belly” (55, 56, 57).

Countering these violent images, Carson introduces the concept of his “gifted hands” in reference to his hand–eye coordination in playing football and in operating a crane at Sennet Steel, explaining his ability to “see” in three dimensions. It is this gift, Carson says, that makes the best surgeons: those who neither have this ability as a natural gift nor pick it up “just don’t develop into outstanding surgeons, frequently encountering problems, constantly fighting complications” (106). Although he believes this eye-and-hand coordination can be acquired, he believes his own capability is a “God-given talent” (112).