69 pages • 2 hours read
Mary RoachStiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Profound Usefulness of Cadavers
The overarching theme of this book is that innumerable modern innovations have been due to research on cadavers. Indeed, Roach argues that in every period, and across the world, cultures have been using their dead for mechanical, medical, and religiouspurposes with the intention of improvement of society. Cadavers’ importance to world history, as evidenced by Roach’s research, is often underreported due to the general squeamishness and discomfort that many people have with regard to the dead.
Cadaver research has contributed to the advancement of medicine and safety provisions: “[f]or every surgical procedure developed, from heart transplants to gender reassignment surgery, cadavers have been there alongside the surgeons, making history in their own quiet, sundered way” (9).As Roach sees it, Stiff is giving recognition to a group of people who, in death, have propelled human innovation forward: “[t]his is a book about notable achievements made while dead. There are people long forgotten for their contributions while alive, but immortalized in the pages of books and journals” (10). Painted as superheroes for their ability to endure so much brutality without flinching, Roach sees cadavers as having “superpowers” that can be used for the betterment of humankind (10).
Innovation and Advancement Borne from Gore
Roach does not shy away from describing the gory, unseemly details of death. This is because it is precisely in those details where the potential for advancement lies. Broken bones lead to innovations in impact studies. Putrefaction leads to innovations in forensic criminology. Organ harvesting leads to prolongation of life.
Roach’s unflinching gaze at gore is a testament to her staunch belief in science. Not content to hide behind euphemisms in life or her writing, Roach delves into the more sordid elements surrounding death. She eschews cultural norms of squeamishness and politeness that make so many people unable to accept the biological realities surrounding death, and the benefits of cadaver research.
The Entanglement of Spirituality, Sacrilege, and Cultural Norms Surrounding Death
Roach draws the readers’ attention to the complicated interplay between spirituality, sacrilege, and cultural norms that inform our perceptions of death. In many instances, these factors bar innovation and advancement. Roach elucidates this entanglement to overcome it, again encouraging the reader to view the dead as “superheroes.” To not utilize their superpowers due to cultural norms would be a waste of their talents.
Spirituality and its relation to death is perhaps the most obvious example of this. For centuries, humans have sought to know what happens to our bodies and souls after we die. Especially in the Chapter Seven, concerning the Crucifixion, as well in Chapter Eight, where we see the scientific quest to verify the existence of the soul, humankind has certain ideas surrounding death that date back to a more religiously-oriented era.
Sacrilege, in both a religious and secular sense, has prevented scientists from using the dead for research purposes. In a religious sense, it was seen as an explicit sacrilege to tamper with dead bodies, which lead early anatomists to hire resurrectionists and body snatchers. In a secular sense, sacrilege is the feeling of “disrespect” that some medical professionals report, in explaining why they would not donate their body to science. Both spirituality and sacrilege help shape (and are shaped by) cultural norms: for example, that cannibalism is seen as the ultimate taboo, or that human composting just seems “wrong.”
For Roach’s purposes, this entanglement is important to note because it delays progress when it comes to doing important research involving cadavers.
