CU-B ENGL250 SP26

Anatomy, Power, and Politics of the Dead      In the early 18-19th century, the human corpse became a primary, but complicated source of fascination in social, medical, and political spheres. This isn't anything specific to this era, but the way the dead were debated upon was. When medical schools all over Europe began popping up with medical advancements on the rise, fascination in anatomical practices that used to just be the realm of science now became a foray into class and pushing the boundaries of morality. Naturally, with the rise of new medical schools and more students, there came a need for bodies—cadavers to be more specific—for the students to practice and study on. However, there weren’t enough bodies to be supplied and executions weren’t an every day happenstance. So what needed to be done to supply these bodies? Grave robbing—and so a new “profession” was born. It became a necessity and a necessity that rose into the public sphere of consciousness.  ...

          Figure 1:  popular painting "The Nightmare" by Henry Fuseli in 1781 Frankenstein in the Gothic and Romanticism Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was published in 1818, which was during the Gothic and Romanticism era. Gothic and Romanticism affected the literature, art, and architecture in the late 18th - early 19th centuries throughout Europe. Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment in the 18th century. It was mainly in England and France and was from the aftermath of the French Revolution (2). The Enlightenment focused on logic and reason, while Romanticism focused on nature, and the Gothic focused on death and the supernatural. Gothic and Romanticism are two different movements that supported each other. Both went against rationalism of the Enlightenment and while the Gothic movement was about the supernatural and death, Romanticism explored themes of death as well. It focused more on nature though and the danger of that with the hum...

(3) Image from Science Alert Overview   Scarlet fever is described as A bacterial illness that can develop in a person with strep throat. Scarlet fever shows bright red rashes all over the body while including high fevers and a sore throat. This illness is most common in children from ages five to fifteen (1). In the late 1800s and early 1900s, England and Wales families and children were under a war of fighting this illness. It wasn’t until the 1920s that a scientist discovered what might be happening to these young children (4).  Mary Shelley, The author of Frankenstein was born in April of 1797. The novel itself was written in 1818. Scarlet Fever had a high mortality rate at this time period being around 12% to 15% (6). It is also said that around this time, which antibiotics were not a thing, only around 20% of people who were infected were able to survive (7). (2) Image from The Lancet Including Frankenstein When Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was written in the early 190...

Electricity Discovery and Reanimation (1) Early 19th-century illustration of a galvanism experiment showing his electricity reanimating a corpse  During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the discovery of electricity was very important. It helped shape how people thought about life as a whole. Some scientists began to work with the idea that electricity held the power to reanimate life, and that electricity itself was the reason for living things. This idea holds great importance to the story Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, which was published at the start of 1818. This scientific discovery directly relates to Frankenstein's main character, Victor Frankenstein, and his attempt to use electricity to create life from a nonliving creature. Arguably, the most important discovery of this time was Galvanism. Galvanism was a theory developed by Luigi Galvani, which stated that electricity is the key to life. He noticed that electricity can cause dead frog muscles to twitch o...

Mary Shelley. (1). The start of Mary Shelley's painful familiarity with grief began at a young age. Her mother, unfortunately, passed away due to complications from childbirth shortly after Mary was born. Throughout her life, she faced numerous tragedies and overcame personal challenges that include losing her own children. Even though she was presented with countless devastating experiences, she found a way to create through her grief. She lived a full and eventful life. When Mary Shelley was sixteen, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was twenty-four at the time. Soon after, she became pregnant with their first child, Clara, who tragically died shortly after being born. Following the loss of their child, she endured a series of personal tragedies that deepened her understanding of loss.  Although it was a common occurrence during this time period, the impact remains the same. Two weeks after Clara had passed, Mary Shelley wrote, “Dream that my little baby came to life agai...

When Science Dug too Deep: Grave Robbing and Frankenstein

     (Fig. 1) Scarlet Fever in children and how it was different from Measles. What is Scarlet Fever?    Scarlet fever, a bacterial infection which caused a strawberry rash on the skin and tongue (1), mainly affected the overpopulated urban areas during the 1800s. It spread world wide during 1820 to 80, due to the lack of modern medicine, causing the fatality rate to rise 30 percent or higher which was during the life of Mary Shelley. The disease itself was very feared during this time as it commonly spread in households once one person got it, mainly due to the contact with the skin sores and rashes that come with disease and how the pus would transfer from the sheets, clothes and even by simply having skin to skin contact. This disease caused many deaths and was their covid.  How it Affected People in the 1800s (Fig. 2) A mother/ nurse taking care   of the sick child.       During the time of the spread of scarlet fever, the ...

Galvanism and the Scientific Origin of  Frankenstein     Mary Shelley’s   Frankenstein   is a science-fiction horror story about a scientist who brings a creature to life from dead body parts. However, when the novel is placed within its historical context, it becomes clear that it is based on real scientific ideas from the early nineteenth century. The scientific developments of Shelley’s time played a major role in shaping the story, particularly the growing interest in galvanism. Galvanism, which became widely discussed in England during the early 1800s, refers to the contraction of muscles and body tissue when exposed to electrical currents. To many people at the time, these experiments suggested that electricity might be connected to life itself. By understanding the influence of galvanism, it becomes clear that the creature in the novel is a manifestation of people’s real fears about unethical scientific experimentation and the dangers of human ambition. ...

  A group of men robbing a woman's body from a grave (6). Background  of  Grave  Robbing  and Connection to the 18 th  and  19th Centuries: In the late 1700s and early 1800s, anatomical and medical sciences were advancing, and according to David Ketterer, bodies used in these sciences started coming in with the passing of the Murder Act of 1752. Ketterer states that the Murder Act “made the medical dissection of all executed murders compulsory” (5). Although this made acquiring bodies easier, it is also stated that, “there were not enough such murders to provide the College of Surgeons with all the corpses it required” (5). This lack of bodies pushed people to drastic measures, and the short, but important, era of grave robbing and body snatching began.                 Grave robbing and body snatching are mostly synonymous. PBS describes them as, “the act of secretly removing corpses from graves for sal...