Anatomy: A Love Story

“She would breach the world between life and death, using electricity to reanimate flesh. What were miracles, but science that man didn’t yet understand? And didn’t that make it all the more miraculous that the secrets of the universe were out there, codes one might decipher if smart enough, tenacious enough?”

Hazel’s experiment with reanimation establishes the protagonist’s key personality traits, particularly her intelligence and her drive. As the title states, Anatomy is a love story, and science is Hazel’s first love. Her desire to “breach the world between life and death” connects to two major themes, Ambition and Opportunity and The Duality of Life and Death. This scene also introduces electricity as a symbol for the thrill of discovery.

“At least George’s memory didn’t hover thick as smoke in Almont House the way it did in every room of Hawthornden Castle. When she married Bernard and eventually became the new Lady Almont, the bad memories could close like the covers of a heavy book. She would get a new name and a new home. She would have a new life. She would be a new person, a person whom sadness would be unable to find.”

This excerpt grants insight into the protagonist’s motivation. At the beginning of the novel, she has little to no interest in romance and accepts the future her family plans for her. She doesn’t love Bernard, but she hopes that marrying her cousin will allow her to escape the grief and guilt she feels over the loss of her brother. As the story continues, Hazel’s vision for her future changes, and she rebels against this expected path.

“She could spend an entire term learning from an actual surgeon, examining bodies, solving cases. She could be the one to cure the Roman fever! She would be the savior of Scotland—how could her mother possibly take issue with her then, when she was famous and celebrated?”

Dr. Beecham’s demonstration marks an important moment for the plot and the theme of Ambition and Opportunity. Hazel learns of Beecham’s upcoming lectures and imagines herself becoming a brilliant doctor, “the savior of Scotland” who will cure the Roman fever. Her ambition stems from guilt and grief because the Roman fever claimed her older brother’s life. Hazel’s decision to enroll in the doctor’s class shapes the rest of the novel.

“Body snatchers were a vital organ of the living city itself. It was filthy, and the fancy folks liked to look away, but they were essential nonetheless. Everyone knew they were doing it; police hardly cared, so long as they didn’t take clothes or jewels from the graves.”

In her exploration of the theme of The Brutality of Corruption, Dana Schwartz examines double standards in 19th-century Edinburgh. Lower-class resurrection men like Jack undertake the “filthy,” illegal, and yet “vital” job of digging up bodies to supply demand from “fancy folks” who “liked to look away.” As the novel continues, the city’s rich and powerful benefit from Dr. Beecham’s medical advancements, which exploit the labor and even the organs of lower-class individuals, but polite society and the law “look away” from this injustice as well.

“Isabella had been a fantasy, she always had been. What did he think, he would buy her one stupid music box and she would swoon? He didn’t even know if she liked music boxes! He was a fool. No, worse than a fool. He was a romantic fool.”

With his heart and the music box both in pieces, Jack chastises himself for indulging the “fantasy” of his feelings for Isabella. There’s a tension between how much the resurrection man has seen and survived and his naïveté with love. His priorities and emotions at this point of the novel stand in stark contrast with Hazel, who has her sights resolutely set on her dream career and has no time for romance. For better or worse, Jack’s capacity to be “a romantic fool” remains after his heart moves on to Hazel.

“There were disembodied hands and feet, and an entire row of milky gray brains in sizes ranging from walnut to swollen grapefruit. And then forming a morbid gallery on a high shelf running across the top of the wall were the skulls, at least a dozen of them, mostly with strange deformities, all in various states of decay.”

Two of the key features of Gothic romance are foreboding settings and the use of vivid descriptions designed to evoke fear and revulsion in the reader. Dr. Beecham’s classroom, with its “morbid gallery” of skulls, ably fits both criteria.

“Do not set foot in my classroom again.”

Dr. Straine bars Hazel from attending the lectures, an important development for the novel’s plot, characterization, and thematic development. While Dr. Straine’s words cut Hazel off from her opportunity to study under the acclaimed Dr. Beecham, her ambition propels her to overcome this obstacle and continue pursuing her medical education.

“The conditions: You will sit the Physician’s Examination at the end of this term. If you pass, I shall open the course to any women who wish to attend, although I warn you there may not be quite so many with your peculiar predilection as you seem to believe. And, in the unlikely event that you do pass, I will also offer you an apprenticeship—with me—at the university hospital, where as you must know, I serve as Chief of Surgery. A rare and highly sought-after apprenticeship.”

The wager between the protagonist and the antagonist marks a turning point in the novel and offers a test worthy of Hazel’s great ambition. Hazel’s determination to pass the exam motivates her to hire Jack, a decision that ultimately leads to the young people falling in love. Thanks in part to her relationship with Jack, Hazel eventually rejects the corrupt Beecham’s offer to work alongside him and pursues her own path in medicine.

“‘Old age should rather be feared than death.’ Beecham once again assumed that far-off expression, and he and Hazel sat in the silence for a few moments, listening to the fireplace continue to crackle and the whiskered men around them sniff and flip the pages of their newspapers.”

Dr. Beecham’s words develop the theme of The Duality of Life and Death and foreshadow the revelation that he has achieved immortality. His “far-off expression” in this scene hints at the loneliness that leads him to offer the tonic to Hazel at the novel’s end.

“The moment their skin touched, the champagne bubbles in Hazel’s stomach foamed with frenetic energy. It was Galvanism, Galvani’s electric shocks—there was no other way to describe it—a current of lightning that flowed from his hand through hers and directly into her pounding heart.”

Throughout the novel, electricity symbolizes the thrill of discovery. When Hazel takes Jack’s hand, she feels “a current of lightning” pass through her. Previously, she only experienced this electric sensation during her scientific experiments, which underlines how novel and powerful her budding feelings for the boy are.

“My apologies for interrupting the festivities, but I have a little announcement to make. The lovely Miss Sinnett and I are engaged. Or at least, we are but a moment away. Hazel, my dear, will you marry me?”

At first, Hazel believes that she wants her cousin to formalize their engagement, but reality proves otherwise. Bernard’s announcement threatens the protagonist’s autonomy and her budding relationship with Jack. In addition, Bernard behaves in a possessive, presumptuous manner towards Hazel at the ball. This is a key moment in Bernard’s transformation from the vain but harmless boy he is at the beginning of the novel to the jealous, vengeful man who accuses an innocent person of murder at the end.

“Dead bodies are never going to bite you. They’re never going to do anything to you. It’s living things that hurt you.”

Hazel teases the resurrection man for his apprehension about horses, prompting the reply above. Their exchange offers comic relief and develops the theme of The Duality of Life and Death. Jack tells Hazel that living things are more dangerous than the dead, suggesting that death is not as fearsome as people tend to believe.

“Someone, three someones, had been walking in the graveyard at night, someone was taking resurrection men, and something horrible had happened to a dead man’s eyes—but Hazel couldn’t think about any of that now. […] She had kissed Jack Currer in a grave, and he had kissed her back, and even with everything else they had faced, that moment was the hardest Hazel’s heart had beaten the entire night.”

Jack and Hazel’s first kiss comes with the suspense and eeriness one expects from a Gothic romance. After narrowly escaping the notice of Dr. Beecham’s sinister accomplices, they kiss in a grave that recently held a mutilated body.

“‘I think we should name her after you. Baby Hazel. I know Thomas will be pleased.’ ‘Baby Hazel,’ Jack repeated. Hazel didn’t trust herself to say anything out loud. She just nodded and finished wiping out the basin she had been cleaning, keeping her back to Jack so that he wouldn’t see her glistening eyes.”

Delivering Isabella’s baby is an important moment for the protagonist and the novel’s themes. Hazel’s work saves two lives, and this success vindicates her career ambitions. However, Hazel is not pursuing medicine merely out of a desire to stimulate her mind or satisfy her pride. She cares deeply for her patients, as shown by her “glistening eyes.”

“‘I’m just a silly little girl playing dress-up and pretending. I haven’t even passed the Physician’s Examination. What do I think I’m doing?’ Jack took Hazel’s hand in his. Hers was cold, almost waxy. White and pale. ‘Hazel,’ he said softly. ‘You are the most brilliant person I’ve ever met in my life. You’re incredible.’ ‘I’m scared,’ Hazel said. ‘Good,’ Jack said. ‘That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with being scared.’”

This scene brings epiphanies for Jack and Hazel and results in significant changes for their relationship. Jack realizes that he’s in love with Hazel after seeing the “brilliant” young woman deliver Isabella’s child, and the same experience shows Hazel what it means to have human lives hang in the balance of her actions. Hazel’s fear stems from her concern for others and the value she places on life. Jack assures her that there’s “nothing wrong with being scared” and ensures that she doesn’t have to face her fears alone. Later in this chapter, Jack promises Hazel his eternal devotion.

“He had made a promise to Hazel, that was true, but she never spent a night hungry the way he had, clenching his fists around his blankets and hoping to fall asleep sooner so he wouldn’t have to feel his stomach tightening and contorting any longer. She had never known the isolation of living in a city without a coin in her pocket, knowing that she’d have nothing but her wits to use to fend off cold or exhaustion. She had always been safe.”

Jack’s decision to resume his work as a resurrection man touches on the themes of Ambition and Opportunity and The Duality of Life and Death. He wasn’t born with the same privileges that Hazel has, so he’s had to create his own opportunities and take calculated risks to survive. This fateful decision sets off a chain of events that results in his abduction and, ultimately, his execution.

“I am going to pass my examination, Bernard, and I am going to become a physician. I’m actually fairly certain I already am one.”

Treating patients gives Hazel the confidence she needs to stand up to Bernard. She asserts that she is “fairly certain” she already is a physician. This is another step on her road to the realization that she can help people outside the male-dominated institutions of the Anatomists’ Society and the Physician’s Exam. Hazel’s conversation with Bernard adds to the novel’s suspense because she promises to give up her medical ambitions unless she passes the test.

“Hazel wished Jack were here, able to talk sense into her, tell her if she was being ridiculous, if she should ignore the baron and the woman and stay focused. Stay focused on getting to the university, on the examination, on her future.”

Hazel’s decision to follow the man with the top hat and the veiled figure in the wheelchair instead of proceeding to the university to take the Royal Physician’s Exam is one of the most significant choices in the novel. At the beginning of the story, she never would have let anything break her focus “on the examination, on her future,” but she has grown over the course of the novel. Although her decision puts her future at risk, it saves Jack’s life.

“‘I simply give order to the chaos. I give meaning to their lives.’ ‘You’re a murderer,’ Hazel spat. ‘Perhaps,’ Dr. Beecham said lightly. ‘But I also bring life. I save lives with the bodies I kill. Poverty is the real murderer, Miss Sinnett. I didn’t create the poor who suffer living twenty to a room in squalor, working twenty hours a day just for a scrap of meat. Is that a life to begin with?’”

Dr. Beecham’s defense of his actions connects to the themes of The Brutality of Corruption and The Duality of Life and Death. He believes the deaths he’s caused are justified because his medical advancements save lives. He abdicates responsibility by calling poverty “the real murderer” and suggesting that the lives of the poor are not worth living. Although Dr. Beecham’s medical advancements are fictional, the overwork and overcrowding he describes are unfortunately historically accurate.

“‘People like you and me, Miss Sinnett, have the potential to usurp God himself.’ His face darkened. ‘Attachments are pain. You may think you understand pain, Miss Sinnett; I’m sure I thought I did, too, when I was your age. But strength comes in the ability to overcome those human impulses.’”

In one of the novel’s most suspenseful scenes, Dr. Beecham attempts to cut out Jack’s heart to teach Hazel that “[a]ttachments are pain.” The antagonist sees his younger self in Hazel because of their shared scientific genius and towering ambition. However, Beecham cuts himself off from “human impulses” while Hazel draws strength from love.

“Every single one of Dr. Beecham’s fingers was mottled and dead, ten fingers from ten different hands. They ranged in skin tone and size, sewn to Beecham’s hand with thick black stitches, neat but visible. ‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘my handiwork wasn’t always so masterly as it is today.’”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein strongly influenced Schwartz’s novel. Like Victor Frankenstein, Schwartz’s antagonist is a brilliant scientist whose arrogance is his undoing. As a fearful composite of dead bodies, the doctor also resembles Frankenstein’s creature. These comparisons help make Beecham a compelling and tragic character.

“The morning after Jack was arrested, Hazel woke up with no self-doubt or fear. There was nothing that frightened her about a life without the safety of a title or a castle, about the wrath of her mother or the disappointment of her father. She would live as a witch in a hedge, stitching wounds and delivering newborns, if she had to. She would beg on the streets, work as a maid, sail to the Continent. The change was astonishing—a spark in her brain, a miracle of fluids or electricity, and now her life felt completely different. For the first time in her seventeen years, her life was her own.”

Jack’s arrest transforms Hazel’s perspective on life. Compared to her fear of losing her beloved, many apprehensions that haunted her throughout the novel no longer matter to her. The protagonist’s newfound clarity ties up several threads, such as the question of whether she will give up her medical work after missing the Physician’s Exam.

“‘Will you take the tonic?’ ‘I don’t know yet,’ Jack said. ‘I’m so scared.’”

Suspense mounts as the day of Jack’s execution nears. Although Dr. Beecham’s elixir would ensure that he survives his hanging, not even Jack knows whether he will drink the tonic. This uncertainty is essential for the novel’s cliffhanger ending.