Anatomy by Dana Schwartz: 12 Analytical Essay Prompts

1. How does Hazel Sinnett’s understanding of anatomy shift from textbook knowledge to embodied practice?

Why this prompt matters: The novel repeatedly contrasts book learning with hands-on experience, culminating in Hazel’s failed dissection under Straine and her later success in the dungeon. This arc tracks her growth from a theoretical enthusiast to a competent physician.

Sample thesis direction: Hazel’s progression from relying on diagrams to dissecting real corpses forges a new epistemology of the body, one that values tactile, messy knowledge over clean abstraction and ultimately enables her to save lives.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 13: Hazel cannot identify organs on a real corpse; Straine mocks her textbook reliance.
Chapter 18: Hazel’s first dissection in the dungeon reveals a missing heart, forcing her to trust her own observations.
Chapter 25: Hazel successfully delivers Isabella’s baby and runs a free clinic, demonstrating practical mastery.
Chapter 31: Hazel confronts Bernard with her identity as a “practicing physician,” signaling full integration of theory and practice.

2. What causal role does the Roman fever epidemic play in Hazel’s medical career?

Why this prompt matters: The epidemic is not mere backdrop; it directly motivates Hazel’s disguise, her wager with Beecham, and her turn to folk remedies. Tracing causality reveals how collective crisis enables individual ambition.

Sample thesis direction: The Roman fever outbreak functions as a narrative engine that repeatedly forces Hazel to innovate—first by pushing her into disguise, then by providing the clinical experience she needs to pass the examination, and finally by justifying her unorthodox treatments.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 7: Hazel imagines curing the Roman fever and winning fame, linking her ambition to the disease.
Chapter 16: Beecham mentions the returning fever when offering Hazel the wager.
Chapter 27: Hazel treats fever patients with wortflower root after a patient dies, shifting from dissection to healing.
Chapter 38: Hazel’s inoculation development and Beecham’s exploitation of the epidemic are revealed as parallel responses.

3. How does the partnership between Hazel and Jack Currer evolve across class and ethical boundaries?

Why this prompt matters: Their relationship is built on illicit trade (bodies for dissection) and mutual risk, challenging the rigid class structure of Edinburgh. It explores whether genuine partnership can transcend social hierarchy.

Sample thesis direction: Hazel and Jack’s collaboration transforms from a transactional grave‑robbing arrangement into a reciprocal bond that subverts class divisions, yet the novel ultimately shows that such subversion is fragile—Jack’s execution reaffirms the power of the ruling class.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 17: Hazel deduces Jack’s trade and directly asks to purchase a body, initiating the partnership.
Chapter 22: Hazel and Jack dig a grave together; she laughs at her engagement while they share trust.
Chapter 26: Jack compares his love for Isabella to “painted flame” and his feeling for Hazel to “living fire,” deepening emotional stakes.
Chapter 37: Jack refuses the immortality tonic because Hazel deserves a normal life, choosing sacrifice over partnership.
Chapter 40/Epilogue: Hazel carries grief but receives a letter suggesting Jack survived, leaving the partnership ambiguous.

4. Contrast the anatomy dissection scene in Chapter 13 with the childbirth scene in Chapter 25. What does each reveal about Hazel’s skill and empathy?

Why this prompt matters: These two scenes bookend Hazel’s development: the first shows her humiliation under Straine, the second her quiet competence. Comparing them illuminates how she integrates technical skill with compassion.

Sample thesis direction: The dissection scene dramatizes Hazel’s failure to translate textbook knowledge into practice, while the childbirth scene demonstrates that hands‑on, patient‑centered care—not academic dissection—is where she truly excels, redefining medical authority.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 13: Straine forces Hazel to identify organs on a corpse; she cannot, and he dismisses her.
Chapter 25: Hazel delivers Isabella’s baby, cleans an infected wound, and treats dozens of patients in her free clinic.
Chapter 13: Straine’s cold, punitive pedagogy contrasts with Hazel’s gentle, attentive approach to Jeanette and Isabella.
Chapter 25: Hazel cries after the birth, showing emotional investment absent in the dissection room.

5. How does the epigraph from Frankenstein echo throughout the novel’s treatment of mortality and knowledge?

Why this prompt matters: The epigraph frames the entire narrative: “To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.” Schwartz constantly tests this idea, from grave robbing to Beecham’s immortality experiments.

Sample thesis direction: The novel interrogates the Frankenstein epigraph by showing that recourse to death, while necessary for anatomical knowledge, can lead to ethical catastrophe when pursued without regard for human dignity—as Beecham’s murders demonstrate.

Evidence leads:

Prologue: Grave robbing and dissection are introduced as means to study life through death.
Chapter 36: Beecham reveals his gold tonic grants eternal life through human sacrifice, literalizing the epigraph’s bargain.
Chapter 37: Jack’s death (or apparent death) forces Hazel to confront the limits of knowledge to save a life.
Epilogue: The letter hints at life after death, suggesting knowledge and love can transcend mortality.

6. Analyze the symbol of the purple vial that glows gold. How does it function as a motif for scientific ambition and moral corruption?

Why this prompt matters: The vial appears at the novel’s opening and recurs in Beecham’s experiments, serving as a physical emblem of the cost of medical progress. Tracing its appearances reveals the themes of class exploitation and immortality.

Sample thesis direction: The glowing vial symbolizes the dangerous allure of alchemical knowledge: it promises transcendence but requires the blood of the poor, exposing how elite science depends on the bodies of the disenfranchised.

Evidence leads:

Prologue: The three men collect Davey’s blood; the vial turns gold, linking wealth and medical experimentation.
Chapter 33: Beecham uses a similar golden drop on Baron Walford’s eye transplant, showing the practical application.
Chapter 36: Beecham offers Hazel the immortality tonic, admitting it requires murder to create.
Chapter 34: Jack and Hazel escape; the vial remains with Beecham, suggesting the corruption continues.

7. Examine how the novel’s structure—with epigraphs, excerpts, and newspaper clippings—shapes the reader’s understanding of historical context and authority.

Why this prompt matters: Schwartz intersperses fictional excerpts from medical treatises and newspaper articles, creating a layered narrative that mimics historical record. This formal choice invites analysis of how official knowledge is constructed.

Sample thesis direction: By embedding excerpts from Beecham’s Treatise, newspaper accounts, and encyclopedia entries, the novel destabilizes a single authoritative voice, revealing that medical and legal institutions are complicit in the very crimes they claim to condemn.

Evidence leads:

Prologue: Excerpt from Beecham’s Treatise defends using executed criminals for dissection while condemning grave robbing—ironic given Beecham’s own crimes.
Chapter 35: The Edinburgh Evening Courant article portrays Jack as a murderer, in contrast to his actual innocence.
Chapter 4: The Encyclopaedia Caledonia entry on the original Beecham hints at alchemical obsession, foreshadowing the grandson’s madness.
Chapter 16: Excerpt on the four humours provides historical grounding for Beecham’s outdated theories.

8. How does the forced engagement between Hazel and Bernard serve as a turning point in Hazel’s character development?

Why this prompt matters: The engagement represents the peak of societal pressure on Hazel to abandon her medical ambitions. Her eventual defiance of Bernard marks a critical shift from passive acceptance to active rebellion.

Sample thesis direction: The public proposal in Chapter 20 traps Hazel in a performance of femininity, but her subsequent secret clinic and confrontation with Bernard in Chapter 31 transform the engagement from a cage into a platform for her to assert her own terms.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 20: Bernard forces a kiss and publicly proposes; Hazel feels paralyzed and accepts, losing agency.
Chapter 24: Hazel again accepts Bernard’s proposal, lying about other suitors, deepening her entrapment.
Chapter 31: Hazel tells Bernard she is already a practicing physician and will not marry unless he accepts her career.
Chapter 36: Hazel burns Bernard’s letters, cutting ties and embracing a future without societal approval.

9. Trace the foreshadowing of Beecham’s true identity and immortality throughout the novel.

Why this prompt matters: The novel drops hints about Beecham’s longevity and alchemical pursuits long before the reveal in Chapter 36. Examining these clues shows how Schwartz builds suspense and challenges the idea of progress.

Sample thesis direction: From the encyclopedia entry on the original Beecham’s alchemy to the consistently cold hands and glowing vial, each clue undermines the notion of scientific progress, suggesting the current Beecham is the original, perpetuating a cycle of exploitation.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 4: Encyclopedia entry notes the original Beecham died from heavy‑metal poisoning, yet the grandson carries the same name and treatise.
Chapter 16: Beecham’s hands are “cold as ice” even through gloves; he speaks Latin and mentions old age.
Chapter 24: Diary excerpt implies the current Beecham may be mad with alchemical obsession.
Chapter 36: Beecham removes gloves showing stitched fingers from different corpses and admits immortality.

10. Analyze the role of the theater in the novel, particularly how Jack’s work at Le Grand Leon mirrors his hidden life as a resurrection man.

Why this prompt matters: The theater is a space of performance and illusion, paralleling Jack’s dual identity and the class performances required of both him and Hazel. It deepens the theme of disguise.

Sample thesis direction: Le Grand Leon functions as a metaphor for the performative nature of Edinburgh society: stagehands like Jack work behind the scenes while aristocrats watch from boxes, just as grave robbing provides the unseen labor that enables elite anatomical study.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 9: Jack works as a stagehand; he contrasts his hidden labor with the audience’s passive consumption.
Chapter 11: Jack’s childhood memory of hanging crowds and body‑snatching is intercut with theater life, linking both forms of spectacle.
Chapter 15: The theater closes due to plague; Jack becomes caretaker, his theatrical career ending as his criminal one resumes.
Chapter 23: Hazel and Jack hide in a grave while men pass—a scene of theatrical tension between visibility and concealment.

11. How does the novel critique the ethics of medical experimentation through Beecham’s eye transplant and the broader pattern of kidnapping the poor?

Why this prompt matters: Beecham’s experiments—and the complicity of the Anatomists’ Society—raise urgent questions about informed consent, class privilege, and the body as commodity. This prompt connects directly to the theme of class inequality.

Sample thesis direction: Anatomy argues that unethical experimentation is not an individual aberration but a systematic feature of elite medicine, which treats the bodies of the poor as research material and covers its crimes through institutional authority.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 33: Beecham transplants a living boy’s eye into Baron Walford without consent; the boy is left bleeding.
Chapter 28: Munro describes being chloroformed and wheeled to a surgical theater for a paid operation, treated as an object.
Chapter 34: Beecham plans a heart transplant using Jack as victim, revealing the scale of his scheme.
Chapter 36: Beecham explains the gold tonic prevents transplant rejection, confessing to multiple murders.

12. Examine the ending: Jack’s execution and the epilogue’s letter. What does this ambiguous conclusion suggest about love, loss, and the possibility of a new life?

Why this prompt matters: The novel’s resolution refuses a neat happy ending. Jack appears to die but the letter hints at survival. This ambiguity forces readers to weigh the costs of Hazel’s choice and the enduring nature of their bond.

Sample thesis direction: By leaving Jack’s fate uncertain, Schwartz denies both tragedy and easy romance, instead affirming that Hazel’s commitment to healing—her work with the living—carries forward the love she shared with Jack, now internalized as a motivation to continue.

Evidence leads:

Chapter 37: Jack refuses the tonic and is hanged; Hazel vows to love him “beating or still.”
Chapter 38: Hazel continues treating fever patients, using wortflower root, and grieves privately.
Epilogue: A burnt letter postmarked New York arrives; Hazel recognizes Jack’s handwriting and pins it above her workstation.
Epilogue: The letter says “my beating heart still belongs to you” and that the writer will be waiting, leaving survival ambiguous but hopeful.