Chapters 7,8, & 9

2.         Only Stiff and horror films would make me think about a dog with two heads, the posture in which Jesus was nailed onto the cross, and body-less heads that continue to speak. In Mary Roach’s novel Stiff, Roach narrates a wide variety of surgeries performed by past surgeons and researchers that use different flesh than that of cadavers. The author explains the surgeries through anecdotes which include historical events and collective data. She then widens her description of the operations through imagery that allows the reader to engage in the story. The author’s purpose is to inform her audience about the accuracy found in cadavers rather than animals or other alternatives in order provide the reader with a clear understanding of the purpose of cadavers. Any mid-age scientist and researcher would feel absolutely comfortable reading Roach’s piece for she conveys a great amount of information about scientific experiments with an enthusiastic and friendly style.      

3.

• Harangue- a long, passionate, and vehement speech, especially one delivered before a public gathering.
• Ubiquitous- existing or being everywhere, especially at the same time
• Nematode- any unsegmented worm of the phylum Nematoda, having an elongated, cylindrical body; a round worm.
•  Noose- a tie or bond; snare
• Amorphous-lacking definite form; no pattern or structure.  

4. Informative, Vibrant

5.

• Analogy: “The things that happen to the dead in labs and Ors are like gossip passed behind one’s back. They are not felt or known and so they cause no pain” (170)
• Humor: “We are fortunate that this is sp, for we would...the somewhat less lilting higado, and bumper stickers would proclaim, “I [liver symbol] my Pekingese” (176).
• Allusion: “It’s a mixing-machine part, a stoat squirming in its burrow, an alien life form that’s just won Pontiac on The Price Is Right” (179).
• Anecdote: “The killer, Andrew Lyons, shot a man in the head in September 1973 and left him brain-dead. When Lyons’s attorney…In the end, Lyons was convicted of murder” (186).
• Rhetorical Questions: “What must that have been like? What could possibly be the purpose, the justification? Had White been thinking of one day isolating a human brain like this? What kind of person comes up with a plan like this and carries it out?” (210)

6.

• Why is the soul taken into great concern?
• Why are the “star-ed” texts set aside?
• Can a person feel themselves after having a body transplant, after all it takes many people to get adapted to a donated heart ?

7. “But H is different. She has made three sick people well. She brought them extra time on earth. To be able, as a dead person, to make a gift of this magnitude is phenomenal. Most people don’t manage this sort of thing while they’re alive. Cadavers like H are the dead’s heroes” (195). 

Stiff. So far so cool.

Chapters 1-3

In Mary Roach’s novel Stiff, she describes the life of a cadaver and narrates the anatomical surgeries, preparations and seminars that she observes. The author uses a series of techniques to get the reader involve in her experiences with cadavers: imagery, allusions, anecdotes, comparisons, dialogue, cause and effect and even history on the subject. The author uses allusions to give a thorough explanation and familiarize the reader with the subject. Roach also uses multiple anecdotes which vary from past anatomists to present surgeons. She also incorporates imagery and comparisons to give the audience an explicit description of the series of events that occur in the book. Her purpose is to convey information about the function and expectations of a cadaver and the history that lays behind the practice on dead bodies.  Roach creates an atmosphere that comforts young anatomists the text serves as an expository piece which revolves around the profession of anatomists and her tone is soothing and humorous which gives the profession less terrifying.

1. Anatomy-dissection of all or part of an animal or plant in order to study its structure.

2. wholly- entirely; totally; altogether

3. dire- causing or involving great fear or suffering; dreadful; terrible: a dire calamity. 

4.Sever-to separate (a part) from the whole, as by cutting or the like.

5. embalm- to treat (a dead body) so as to preserve it, as with chemicals, drugs             

      6. eviscerate- Surgery . to remove the contents of (a body organ).

      7. ghoul- an evil demon, originally of Oriental legend, supposed to feed on human  beings, and especially    to rob graves, prey on corpses, etc.

8. hermetically- so as to be airtight.

Soothing, humorous, friendly

• Allusion: “Do you recall the Margaret Hamilton death scene in The Wizard of Oz? (“I’m melting!”) Putrefaction is more or less a slowed-down version of this” (68).

• Imagery: “Something else is going on. Squirming grains of rice are crowded into the man’s belly button. It’s a rice grain mosh pit” (65).

• Anecdote: “The case centered on a garbage scavengernamed Oscar Rafael Hernandez, who in March 1992 survived an attempt to murder him…Hernandez came to and escaped to tell his tale” (50).

• Euphemism: “Lets not use the word “maggot.” Let’s use a pretty word. Let’s use “Hacienda.”(65).

• Dialogue: “Like how large?” “I don’t know. Large” “Softball large? Watermelon large” “Okay, softball.” (67)

1. How long does it take a cadaver to become completely dead and useless?
2. Does the book follow a specific order? Is it directed by the experiences of the author?
3. How does the amount of cadavers run today? Are they still scarce and difficult to attain?

“To those factors I would add the popularization of science. The gains in the average person’s understanding of biology have, I imagine, worked to dissolve the romance of death and burial—the lingering notion of the cadaver as some beatific being in an otherworldly realm of satin and chorale music, the well-groomed almost-human who simply likes to sleep a lot, underground, in his clothing”(57).