TOW #14- Stiff

Mary Roach wrote a book on a topic that is not extremely popular among the vast majority of people. Except, perhaps, doctors and morticians. Published in 2003, Stiff documents the many different ways cadavers have helped the living through transplants and tests. In this book, the author uses metaphors and similes in order to describe the importance of human cadavers, and to make cadavers seem less scary. Stiff begins with a comparison between death and cruises. Roach states that on cruise ships “Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you,” which, coincidentally, sounds very similar to death (Roach 9). This strange and profound metaphor is the perfect way to begin such a book. The reader is hooked, and forced to look at death in a different way, instead of the sad and morbid image that floods most humans’ brains when thinking of it. The rest of the book has the same light and uplifting tone, which is set directly with the comparison. Rather than a scary book about dead bodies coming to life, Stiff is a nonfiction piece that displays the helpfulness of cadavers, making the uncomfortable topic more personal. In addition to metaphors, repetition is used to ease the minds of the readers. Cadavers are not “depressing or heart-wrenching or repulsive”, but they “seemed sweet and well-intentioned, sometimes sad, occasionally amusing. Some were beautiful, some monsters. Some wore sweatpants and some were naked, some in pieces, others whole,” according to the author (Roach 11). This description of the human cadavers Roach has dealt with in the past successfully calms the reader because, at the point that bodies become cadavers, they are anonymous science experiments rather than living, breathing people. It was imperative that Roach make this point in the beginning of the book because, from this point on, the audience will feel comfortable with hearing about heads being chopped off and bodies being used as crash test dummies. Due to these rhetorical devices, the rest of the books is able to explain how cadavers have help the human species, without scaring away the audience.