Thunderstruck

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Parts 2-3

Parts 4-5

Part 6-Coda

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Background

Historical Context: After the Epilogue: The Merging of Wireless with the News

Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck concludes with Marconi’s wireless form of communication reaching mainstream awareness because of the sensational transatlantic manhunt for Dr. Crippen, an infamous murderer traveling with his mistress in disguise. Larson notes, “Followed by millions of newspaper readers around the world, the great chase that ensued helped advance the evolution of a technology we today take utterly for granted” (9). The salacious and exciting nature of the manhunt propelled wireless to the forefront of the conversation about the practical uses of scientific breakthroughs. The manhunt proved the vitality and usefulness of the wireless in real-time with real results. Through the chase, Marconi, who had been plagued by skeptics, inadvertently won over even the most ardent of opponents to the benefits of wireless. Thus ends Thunderstruck.

However, Marconi’s device goes on to be adapted for multiple uses, including radio for mass consumption and eventually television. Devices utilizing wave technology go on to become mainstays in homes in the form of the radio by the late 1920s and car radio shortly after that. Rather than two-way communication, the technology was tweaked to merge both the wireless delivery of broadcast with the showmanship and delivery of the news. The Dr. Crippen manhunt demonstrated the public’s desire for instant, reliable news. Nightly news broadcasts satiated the public’s demand for instant, audible news. In a world at war, broadcast became a staple. Through the investigation of the practical manipulations and uses of waves, Marconi’s technologies lead to the end of “The Great Hush.”

Historical Context: Controversy Surrounding the North London Cellar Murder Conviction

A great deal of controversy surrounds the investigation and trial of Dr. Crippen for the murder of Cora Crippen. After intense media frenzy during the near escape of Crippen and Le Neve, the murder trial lasted only four days, during which key witnesses were not called to testify, and the sworn affidavit used during the arrest was withheld from the defense team.

Investigators at the time found it unlikely that the diminutive and kindly Dr. Crippen could be capable (physically and emotionally) of murder and dismemberment. As Larson writes about Dew’s reaction, “What lay before him in the cellar was an affront to his working hypothesis that the killer was Dr. Crippen” (353). The jury deliberated for only 27 minutes before returning a guilty verdict. The verdict was based on three key factors: a flap of skin supposedly showing Cora’s well-known abdominal scar, a fragment of Crippen’s pajamas uncovered with the remains, and a purchase by Crippen of the drug found in the human remains (423).

Larson’s portrayal of the trial includes a depiction of the prosecution’s expert medical witness, whose good looks and charm sway the jury toward his view over other medical opinions on the flap of skin that he claimed was Cora’s scar: “He spoke with such quiet confidence and aplomb that he won the jury and became the darling of the press” (423). The scar in question contains hair, which forensic scientists then and now believe cannot be a scar at all.

Physical evidence collected and processed from the corpse in the Hilldrop Crescent cellar has since been analyzed. For years after the book’s publication, DNA analysis suggests the body from the cellar is male and could not thus belong to Cora Crippen (“Was Dr Crippen Innocent of His Wife’s Murder?” BBC News, 29 July 2010).