Stiff : The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers By Mary Roach

In the short story, The Body, written by Stephen King, various life lessons are evident in the adventure the four main characters have. The life lessons chosen by the author are reflective of life lessons that could be learned by the reader, and life lessons that are not always vocalized. In Stephen King’s The Body, the group of young boys learn many different life lessons including family not always being trustworthy, some things should be kept to yourself, and that friends, even best friends, can split up.

When we have strong love for others, we take risks, we go against our beliefs, we put ourselves in danger, and we let our loved ones go. Without love, there would be none of that. In this book, The Dead and the Gone, written by Susan Beth Pfeffer, a comet smashes the moon closer to earth and it creates all sorts of problems. Alex, a teenage boy with two sisters, starts a long journey of survival and risks. This story is so realistic, at times was hard to read. You start to ask yourself these tough questions, like what you would do in a specific situation. Through out the whole story, love is definitely a recurring theme. It shows you how well love can hold a family is distress together.

Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain, by Jessica Mitford, was very informative about a subject that isn’t talked about much as it may cause offense. The author’s purpose was to share many of the common practices of the funeral industry. She described in detail how the procedure works, discussed the practice of embalming, and the secrecy behind it. The author also uses a sarcastic tone throughout the article. Her tone seems to show that she finds the entire procedure of making a dead person beautiful again then letting the family view them, rather absurd. She also used some dark humor to make fun of the practice of embalming. She brings to light what happens behind the curtains to the deceased and makes it seems controversial.

“What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” (p. 28). In the scientific novel Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince, self-acclaimed “Medical Maverick” Dr. Moalem makes in-depth analyses of current human diseases that, ironically, may have led to the survival of mankind in the past. He presents a novel concept that greatly contradicts what have been universally accepted beliefs surrounding biology and the process of human evolution for a long time. With the use of myriad scientific studies and research, he formulates surprising theories about a positive correlation between disease and humanity. Moalem narrates the scientific world’s findings that strongly exemplify his assertions, however arbitrary they may seem at first. Three of the diseases that he examines, hemochromatosis, Type 1 diabetes, and favism, could have been particularly useful for resistance against other illnesses and survival in a historically harsh environment.

In the book Stiff, cadavers are used in different areas and kinds of research. As I read, I was surprised to see that there were so many unique ways that cadavers are used. The most surprising thing that I read was that cadavers were used as art. This book was not only interesting, but enlightening as well. It is unbelievable how useful cadavers have been in helping the living in so many different ways.

From the essay, The Dead Baby Mystery, Gawade starts with a court case that involves the murders of eight children of Marie Noe that no one could explain what happened. As Gawande writes, “some of the most respected pathologists of the time, could find no explanation for the crib deaths” (202) and “Foul play was strongly considered, but no evidence for was found” (202). What Gawande has written is that at the time, cases like these, child murder or accident, determines not easily. Even three decades later — the case reopened and she was charged — one of the officials that wrote back to Gawande stating “that there was no direct evidence to support the charges” (Gawande 204). That quote Gawande wrote to show that the charge came from indirect or circumstantial evidence. With what has happened to Noe and the children, Gawande postulates that charging people in the child abuse case is difficult to do because it uses circumstantial evidence. Thus, what I write for this paper will be a summary of Gawande's points in the essay The Dead Baby Mystery of how it is difficult to convict a Marie Noe in a child abuse case.

In Killing the Black Body, Dorothy Roberts describes the history of African-American women and the dehumanizing attempts to control their reproductive lives. Beginning with slavery, to the early beginning of birth control policy, to the sterilization abuse of Black women during the 1960s and 1970s, continuing with the current campaign to inject Norplant and Depo-Provera along with welfare mothers, Roberts argues that the systematic, institutionalized denial of reproductive freedom has uniquely marked Black women’s history in America.

Most people often fail to perceive trauma accurately. In many occasions, some individuals often dismiss or think of it as something that is curable. However, it is an unfortunate and complicated form of damage that requires careful consideration and is not easy to deal with. Besides, trauma occurs on a scale that varies depending on each individual. It is arguable that nearly every individual has dealt with trauma in their lives.

Inside a morbid place was the living and the dead. The pathologist, a burly bearded bifocal wearing man, had scheduled cadaver 9252012 for autopsy that day. It was stored inside drawer F, one of twenty-one refrigerated cabinets. It is a grim place, the laboratory where these butcheries are conducted. Lingering in the air is the foul stench of death, the chemicals used to suppress the ghastly odor only intensifying it, rendering a fusion of ammonia, chlorine and rot. Positioned in the center of the room is a cadaver dissection table, a polished slab of steel surrounded by troughs to catch the oozing blood and bodily fluids that escape the corpses during the process. Detective Ron Burlingame of the Lake City, Florida Police Department, requested

In chapter 1 it goes over a lot of the basics of human behaviors and what might come when you look into this stuff. Like the first day morgue syndrome which is a common reaction to something that is new or they might have an unusual situation and have no response at all. The book said that there are many reason for the first day morgue syndrome but a big one is fear. I always thought that with a lot of people don’t do a lot of things just out of sheer fear; I am of course of one those people. Like most people it’s not out of fear of dying but more of fear of making a fool out of myself, that’s why I or most cautious people don’t do extreme things first or at all. Like even in class at school I don’t ask to many questions because of the fear of looking dumb.

Ghostly representations of “the other” imagine a social evil that has not been put to rest. These images reoccur in the Western canon, marking the persistence of slavery long after its abolition. Haunting, ghosts and skeletons in Benito Cereno act as a vehicle through which the suppressed return to the stage with a message. The ghosts carry with them all that the imperialists wanted to control, including emotions, and more precisely, the emotions of the oppressed. I argue that ghosts and skeletons comprise an area of tension in which the appearance of the “other” reveals that the dominant party’s control is incomplete. Yet, the presence is merely ghostly due to the constant policing and lack of respect for the Other. These ghosts also break through the boundaries of the dominant culture’s paradigms and identities (Harpham 17), signaling potential political crisis. This text signals the fear of the retaliation of the Other through ghostly representations by projecting on to the other, their own identities of brutality and irrationality. “Benito Cereno” by Herman Melville overturns the racist images of the colonized by relocating evil in the order of slavery. Hauntings carry the perspectives and powers of the slaves by preserving the dead amidst the living and the past amidst the present, they muddle up the concept of time and therefore defy the Western dream of complete control.

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives is a collection of short stories by David Eagleman. Eagleman is a neuroscientist, Guggenheim fellow, author/presenter of the PBS series “The Brain,” and a bestselling author. On his website Q&A, Eagleman claims the title is related to the Latin term for the highest, as in summa cum laude, or the English word summit. Sum is a work of fiction, each chapter a mutually exclusive story about what happens after you die. The characters are, in nearly every chapter, God and the humans. The author’s forty theories about the afterlife point to a bigger picture of the human condition, and raise contemplation about the way the reader lives.

This book was probably one of the most interesting yet disturbing book that I have ever read. The process of getting cadavers to study has not only been extremely difficult throughout the years, but it has also tested the morales of many people. Whether its stealing people from the grave, or even hiring hit men to kill for you just so you can have a fresh body. In my paper I am going to talk about the topics that really it me, and that I either found really intriguing or disturbing.

Stephen Edwin King was born on September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. King is one of the most successful horror writers of all time. His parents split up when he was very young, and he and his brother divided their time between Indiana and Connecticut for several years. King later moved back with his mother and brother. Then he graduated from Lisbon Falls High School.

Albert Wendt, a Samoan novelist and poet, composed an article titled “Towards a New Oceania” that explains finding our new Hawaiki where there is no discord from ‘outsiders’. Albert Wendt is known for to counteract literature about Oceania and its people drafted by foreigners. They have ‘plagued’ Oceania and its people when they ‘rescued’ us by colonizing the islands. Colonization had devastated our lifestyles and tradition that will continue to affect us, especially for the future generations to come.