58 pages • 1 hour read
Dana SchwartzAnatomy: A Love Story
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Brutality of Corruption
Dana Schwartz uses the genres of Gothic romance and historical fiction to draw attention to The Brutality of Corruption. Dr. Beecham is arguably the most corrupt character in the novel. He achieves immortality, wealth, and prestige, and he uses his advantages to prey on the most vulnerable members of his society. Some of the most brutal scenes depict the operations he performs on people without their consent or the aftermath of these procedures. The inhumane doctor and his frightful experiments suit the eerie Gothic romance Dana Schwartz creates.
However, the corruption in the novel is not limited to the supernatural elements or to Dr. Beecham’s singular villainy. Rather, the antagonist takes advantage of broader systems that leave people defenseless. According to Beecham, society, not he, is responsible for the lives lost in his procedures: “They were the poor and the destitute. The city had already killed them, and I was just using every piece of the animal” (323). Self-serving though it may be, Dr. Beecham’s indictment of the unjust and unequal society that has enabled his work is essentially accurate. Dr. Beecham sends Jones and his associates to abduct those whom society has already deemed disposable. This includes the poor, young people without families, and resurrection men. For those at the bottom of Edinburgh’s social ladder, medical care takes the form of almshouse hospitals, “where the doctors wore aprons streaked with blood and the destitute slept three to a cot” (234). These abysmal conditions and correspondingly high mortality rates stand in stark contrast to the medical marvels Beecham works for the wealthy using body parts stolen from the poor. Indeed, Dr. Beecham’s fictional experiments were inspired by the real historical practice of wealthy people paying doctors to transplant teeth taken from the poor—a practice depicted early in the novel in a way that foreshadows the even grizzlier transplants to come.
Like Dr. Beecham, Jack plays a vital role in developing the theme of The Brutality of Corruption. His work as a resurrection man facilitates chilling graveyard scenes that befit the Gothic romance genre. Even more chilling is the way that the city relies on the work of resurrectionists while leaving them on the fringes of society. Beecham dismisses the marginalized as “thieves and criminals” (298), but this overlooks the circumstances that compel Jack and his fellow resurrectionists to resort to digging up bodies to survive. Jack makes Hazel aware of her privilege and opens her eyes to the difficulties facing the poor in Edinburgh. Hazel’s attachment to Jack is essential to the ending. His execution drives home the theme of corruption. Despite his innocence, the word of a prestigious doctor and a future viscount are enough to condemn him. By demonstrating The Brutality of Corruption, Schwartz challenges her readers to ask themselves who is considered disposable in their own societies.
Ambition and Opportunity
Over the course of the novel, Hazel pursues her ambition and creates opportunities to achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. While Hazel’s status as a noblewoman affords her more privileges and socioeconomic security than many characters enjoy, her gender closes some opportunities to her. In Chapter 3, Bernard summarizes the upper class’s disparaging view of Hazel’s dream career. He likens surgeons to butchers and says that this field of medicine is “for men with no money. No status” (35). Not to be deterred, Hazel uses George’s clothes to disguise herself as a young man and enroll in Dr. Beecham’s lectures. Her disguise becomes a motif for the theme of ambition and opportunity because it shows how Hazel uses her ingenuity to attain opportunities that would otherwise be closed to her. However, Dr. Straine sees through her disguise and sees no future for a woman in the world of medicine. His cutting remarks target her social status, which he believes gave her fanciful ideas about her potential: “Another consequence of growing up without the glow of privilege is that one becomes quick to dispel illusion and fantasy” (123). Bernard and Dr. Straine test Hazel’s resolve by urging her to abandon her ambitions.
Despite setbacks and familial pressures, Hazel forges a new path to her goals. Barred from attending classes, she joins Jack to dig up dissection subjects for her studies. Because Jack and Hazel have very different backgrounds and places in society, their perspectives on opportunity also differ. When Hazel first suggests that she accompany Jack to the graveyard, her indifference towards the potential dangers exasperates him: “See, that’s the problem with wealthy people. You just assume you can do anything you want, whenever you want, and everything will just somehow work out for you!” (185). Hazel retorts that it’s sometimes possible for people to create opportunities for themselves, and she cites Jack’s resurrection work as an example because no one gave him permission.
In the end, Hazel succeeds in making her own opportunities. For example, she turns Hawthornden into a teaching hospital. Naturally, this is only possible because of Hazel’s privilege, as not everyone has a castle to themselves. Importantly, Hazel does not have to abnegate her ambitions to help others, because the two are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, welcoming the sick into her home benefits both the patients and the budding doctor. In this way, the protagonist differs from the antagonist, who distances himself from the rest of humanity and exploits others to achieve his aims. In addition, treating patients gives Hazel the confidence to stand up to Bernard and defend her dream. Defying both societal expectations and her fiancé’s wishes, she informs him that she will continue her medical work and that she is “fairly certain” she is already a physician (278). Hazel stops waiting for men like Bernard and Beecham to give her permission. In this light, her decision to miss the exam is not a failure but rather a break from a system that never welcomed her anyway. By achieving her dream of becoming a doctor, Hazel exemplifies the importance of holding onto one’s ambitions and creating opportunities for oneself.
The Duality of Life and Death
Anatomy demonstrates that life and death give each other meaning. In the novel, those with wealth and power often try to pretend otherwise and distance themselves from death. For example, Hazel watches her social peers enjoy a sunny day in Princes Street Gardens while the poor suffer and die from the plague in the smoggy Old Town. She asks herself, “How were they all so content? How did the rich so easily dismiss the chaos and terror within their city?” (217). On the other hand, acknowledging death makes Hazel more protective of life and more compassionate towards other people regardless of their socioeconomic status.
While many find death frightening, death helps to sustain life. The novel opens with the following excerpt from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein: “To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death” (vii). Hazel’s medical studies reflect this truth. By examining cadavers, she gains a better understanding of life. In addition, her deathly brush with the Roman fever gives her the knowledge and the immunity she needs to save others from the disease. To understand life, people must know death. On a more literal level, digging up bodies allows Jack and his colleagues to earn a living. As a resurrection man, Jack is on particularly intimate terms with death. He rejects the widespread cultural fear of contact with the bodies of the dead, observing, “It’s living things that hurt you” (203). According to Hazel’s and Jack’s experiences, death is less frightening and more instructive than people tend to think.
In the novel, attempting to separate life from death results in disaster. Life and death exist in a balance in which they give each other meaning. Beecham violates this balance and is punished for his arrogance. What he receives is not more life, as he hoped, but an endless emptiness—a kind of living death. His pursuit of immortality costs him his humanity, his identity, and his hope of reuniting with his loved ones in the afterlife. Beecham developed his tonic of eternal life because he feared mortality and being forgotten, but he considers that his wife may have been right in refusing to drink the tonic: “I wish I could see my children again. She is spending eternity with them, and I am still here” (320). For all his achievements, Hazel’s last impression of Dr. Beecham in the novel is that he looks “less like a man and more like a shadow” (325). Schwartz encourages her readers not to fear death as Beecham does but rather to recognize it as the essential counterpart of life.
