The Bodies Exhibit: Why we read Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, usually credited as the first true work of science fiction, stresses the fairly common themes of man’s overweening pride, his error in overstepping boundaries, and the often horrific events that follow such actions.

In Shelley’s day, early 19th century, many in the field of “natural philosophy,” or science, were trying to discover the “life impulse,” or the origin of the life. This was the time that Dr. Galvin (see Galvinism) was attempting to resurrect dead bodies. It was commonly believed that electricity, also newly discovered, was the spark of life and experiments were conducted making a dead frog’s legs jump, for instance. Percy Shelley’s first wife, the pregnant Harriet, drowned herself in the middle of London in a pond upon learning that her husband was having an affair with Mary. Doctors tried new methods of resusitation on her to no avail.

Many, like Shelley and her atheist husband, Percy the poet and her philosopher parents the Godwins, had abandoned a belief in God, so substitiute answers to fundamental questions were sought. Elaborate salon discussions were held at the Godwin home where Percy and Mary met.

However, the Shelleys held Romantic worldviews. While denying the Judeo-Christian God, they also distrusted pure science and favored a more transcendental view and certainly believed, like all Romantics, in the sanctitiy of Nature — capital N. Tamperings with nature, its fundamental laws, would surely open a Pandora’s box.

Hence, when the married Percy, Mary, Lord Byron and Mary’s half-sister and another friend were vacationing at the Vila Diodati, a contest was proposed. It was raining and philosophy is only fun for so long. Everyone go away and write your best ghost story.

The boys got bored with the project and left it in favor of throwing the football, but the 18-year-old Mary invented the monster we are all so familiar with today: Frankenstein’s monster. (Frankenstein is actually Victor Frankenstein, the dubious creator. The monster is unnamed.)

The novel was and still is a hit and has been produced and parodied in many genres, including Gene Wilder as “Young Frankenstein” in Mel Brooks’s comedy. But Mary was dead serious. Her point: Don’t mess with Mother Nature. Victor’s fascination with the “unhallowed arts” digging around in cemeteries searching for body parts was even to the atheist a despicable act. Further, Victor’s experiment playing God (Shelley’s Nature) results in the death of his little brother, a family friend, and his own bride on their honeymoon, all victims of the monster and Victor’s pride.

Last weekend I visited a museum where the Bodies exhibit is on display. This exhibit has stirred global controversy, one side lauding its educational value, its magnification of the glories of the human body, the other side declaring it an exploitation of human dignity. In the museum I visited, the exhibit was adjacent to the children’s museum. A uniformed employee steered children away, loudly warning parents to keep to the right.

No wonder. Twenty-one real human bodies and 260 body parts are displayed in “dynamic” positions that mimic everyday activities. Some hold that the Church kept the world in the scientific dark ages through its squeamish approach to the human body. Others, like me, believe that there is a sanctity to life and death and the body itself. To display real people, though dead, without names, without identity, and reportedly without their permission (possibly Chinese prisoners,) is an invasion of privacy (current battle cry du jour) in the most extreme manner.

In an article by Paulette Miniter for SmartMoney.com, the following financial statistics shed more than a little light.

“Provocative ideas are often lucrative ones, and though Premier [Geller runs Premier Exhibitions (PRXI: 4.68, -0.34, -6.77%), a $463 million company that operates "Bodies" shows around the globe.] has been public since 1993, it’s just starting to get respect on Wall Street. Shares have gained 158% year to date to $15.65 as of Wednesday’s close. “We believe the company’s stock price has only recently begun to reflect its potential for significant sales and earnings growth,” Chris Krueger, an analyst at Northland Securities in Minneapolis, said in a research report in late July. Shares hit a 52-week high of $18.62 on July 18.

“In Premier’s fiscal first quarter, ended May 31, revenue nearly doubled to $11.4 million and earnings about tripled to $3.3 million. Cash and cash equivalents are up to $19.7 million, a substantial increase from $2.5 million a year earlier.”

The National Enquirer pulls in big bucks, too. This display appeals to man’s base, morbid curiosity. It’s a freak show. Anyone who wants to study the human body for educational purposes will find no shortage of material. Exhibit viewers see more than medical students do.

Who are these “bodies?” Victor used the random recently dead and buried. “Bodies” uses anonymous cadavers, too. From China. According to an AP article by Mitch Stacey published by the Washingtonpost.com August, 2005,

“The company says it legally obtains specimens from the Dalian Medical University Plastination Laboratories in China, but there’s been media speculation that some of the bodies are those of executed prisoners or other victims of an underground anatomy market. Premier maintains the bodies used in its shows are unclaimed cadavers.”

Anything for a profit. Imagine your father’s body, privates and all, on display for millions of gawking viewers. Without his permission. He has no name any more. He has no grave with a tombstone marking the resting place of his mortal body. He has been plasticized by a firm in China and is viewed at $2o.oo a peep in a carnival side show. Hardly dignified. It’s dehumanizing and recalls everything we hated about Nazi experimentation, doesn’t it?

Where is the Church on this? It holds the corner on these issues and should make the traditional Judeo-Christian view on this subject known. (I saw some Catholic anti-exhibit press.)

I appreciate the navy burial service and offer it here. Note the careful, reverent protocol. But what were we thinking. Look at the “Bodies” stock figures. The Department of Defense could make billions! The exhibit: War . . . What is it good for? 

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq85-1.htm

It’s not exactly morbid, but . . .

“Famous last words.” We say it idiomatically when someone says something profound, but not necessarily reliable or likely to happen. I guess we like to think we’ll have the presence of mind, when the time comes, to say something witty, profound, or memorable. Maybe we should only hope for intelligible.

What runs through the mind when the end is certain? I’ve been reading the famous last words of well-known people.   In some of the examples, the dying person realizes that an accident is imminent. Some are dying of a disease. Many think of family. Others, God. There’s fear, arrogance, and anger. Relief. Maybe our last words represent who we were in life. 

The suicides are the hardest to read. Or maybe the final utterance of those about to be executed. How helpless and human we are when facing death, the most democritizing agent we have.  See for yourself.

• Please don’t let me fall.
  Who: Mary Surratt, before being hanged for her part in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. She was the first woman executed by the United States federal government.
• All right then, I’ll say it: Dante makes me sick.
  Who: Lope de Vega, famous playwright, on being assured that the end was very near.
• I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.
  Who: Leonardo da Vinci
• My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.
  Who: Oscar Wilde
• One more time.
  Who: Wolfman Jack (pseudonym of Robert Weston Smith), Veteran radio DJ. Spoken to his wife, with open arms, after completing a tour promoting his autobiography. During a loving hug, he collapsed and died in her arms.
• Draw your sword and kill me, so they can’t say, ‘A woman killed him.’
  Who: Abimelech. Judge of Israel.
• Am I dying, or is this my birthday?
  Who: Lady Nancy Astor (lots of family around the bed)
• Let’s roll.
  Who: Todd Beamer, passenger on United Flight 93, September 11, 2001.
• KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you but cannot see you. Gas is running low.
  Who: Amelia Earhart
• A dying man can do nothing easily.
  Who: Benjamin Franklin  Note: As he lay dying, his daughter suggested that if he lay on his side, he could breathe easier.
• Das ist absurd! Das ist absurd! Translation: This is absurd! This is absurd!
  Who: Sigmund Freud
• I’m tired of fighting! I guess this thing is going to get me.
  Who: Harry Houdini  One of Harry Houdini’s tricks was to tighten his stomach muscles and invite strong men to punch him in the stomach, and he would withstand the blow. He was asked by a young man one day if he would be able to withstand such a blow. Houdini replied yes and was promptly punched in the gut. As Houdini had not had time to brace himself he received the full force of the punch and his gut ruptured, wounding him fatally
• Oh, do not cry - be good children and we will all meet in heaven.
  Who: Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States
• No, you certainly can’t.
  Who: John F. Kennedy  context: This was said in reply to Nellie Connally, wife of Governor John Connelly, commenting “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome, Mr. President.”
• I am just going outside. I may be some time.
  Who: Captain Lawrence Oates, on Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition, while suffering from frostbite and sheltering from a blizzard, Oates felt he was decreasing his companions’ chances of survival. Oates voluntarily left the tent; it was his 32nd birthday. He was never seen again.
• I have not told half of what I saw.
  Marco Polo, Venetian traveller and writer

These quotations were casually researched, a nice read, and came from wikiquotes, so, as you know, do serious tracking if you wish to cite.