Tow #11 IRB: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (Part 1)

Mary Roach is a naturally curious woman that has written six books about different areas of nature, whether it was about the living or the dead. Stiff is the first book Roach wrote and it is about human bodies and what is done with them once they are dead. Although the book mainly addresses donation of the body to science, Roach also explains cremation and embalming all in graphic detail.  Roach is able to inform people interested in the subject with humor and comparisons of body parts to familiar items, most commonly food. For example, when describing what a brain looks like after three weeks of death, she says it "becomes like soup in there...chicken soup. It's yellow." Although comparing the cadavers to food may ruin that food for her audience, at least they can picture exactly what Roach was seeing at the time. The comparisons help the reader know exactly what the dead looks like, smells like, and even what the meat-eating bugs on the dead bodies sound like (Rice Krispies). In the first half of the book along with using humor, Roach is also uses a more serious tone. She makes it clear that dying is not funny and it is hard to deal with, yet it does not have to be boring. She acknowledges that her book may be controversial and that it is okay to disagree with her point of views. However, Roach makes her claim very clear by stating that it is "a shame to waste these powers, to not use them for the betterment of humankind" to not donate your body to science. By having a clear point of view, she is able to successfully support it in an unconventional way, which is through the use of humor. Overall I think she was successful in convincing people that her point of view is valid. She does not approach the subject of cadavers in a boring way, therefore I think that her audience will stay interested throughout the entire book and realize that they can do the amazing things that cadavers do once they are dead.