Hazel Sinnett: The Surgeon Who Defied Death and Society

Overview

Hazel Sinnett is the determined young protagonist of Dana Schwartz’s Immortality, the sequel to Anatomy: A Love Story. At eighteen, she lives alone at Hawthornden Castle after her mother and brother move to England, working as an unpaid, secret surgeon in Edinburgh. She writes a medical treatise for ordinary people, treats the poor, and eventually becomes entangled with a secret society of immortals while navigating love, loss, and false imprisonment. Her journey challenges the era’s gender norms and explores what it means to live—or not to live—forever.

Plot Role

Hazel’s arc moves from isolated practitioner to royal physician to honorary member of the Companions to the Death, and finally to a new life in America with her resurrected love, Jack. She is arrested for a murder she didn’t commit, rescued by royal order to treat Princess Charlotte, and drawn into a hidden world of immortals. She refuses the Tincture of immortality but becomes the society’s surgeon. After discovering the Companions’ corruption—including Marie‑Anne Lavoisier poisoning King George III—Hazel helps Charlotte fake her death to escape a forced marriage. She reconciles with Jack, who has been made immortal, and the two marry and sail to America, where Hazel eventually gains admission to medical school.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Hazel’s primary motivation is to heal and to understand the human body. She re‑breaks and resets a dockworker’s infected arm (Chapter 1), drains abscesses, and pulls teeth—all without pay. She writes her treatise to democratize medical knowledge. Her grief over the deaths of her brother George and her beloved Jack drives her to bury herself in work. She is fiercely independent, refusing Bernard’s marriage proposal and later Simon von Ferris’s, and she disguises herself as a man to attend anatomy lectures (revealed in Chapter 10). Her compassion extends to strangers: she secretly nurses a woman who attempted a self‑abortion, nearly costing Hazel her life when she is falsely accused of murder. She demonstrates courage by walking into the Companions’ lair alone and later by ripping off Marie‑Anne’s reattached arm to escape.

Chronological Arc

Relationships

Jack Currer / Ellis

Jack is Hazel’s first love. She grieves him for months, then discovers he survived hanging thanks to Beecham’s Tincture. Their reunion is tense: Jack’s immortality makes him believe they have no future. Hazel refuses to give up and eventually vows to find a way to reverse the Tincture. They marry in Saint Pancras and share an immortal life together in America.

Simon von Ferris

The young Swedish physician to King George III. He respects Hazel’s skill, proposes marriage, and helps her obtain a corpse for Charlotte’s escape. She declines his proposal because she loves Jack. Simon remains a loyal friend and invents a false disease to protect Hazel’s reputation after Charlotte’s “death.”

Princess Charlotte

Hazel treats the Princess for feigned illness, learns of Charlotte’s love for Eliza, and helps her escape a political marriage. Hazel orchestrates the faked death and risks her own life to give Charlotte freedom.

Marie‑Anne Lavoisier

Initially a mentor, Marie‑Anne welcomes Hazel into the Companions. She reveals the dark side of the society—poisoning the king to control the monarchy—and attacks Hazel when her plans are threatened. Hazel’s moral line is drawn at using power to harm individuals.

Dr. Beecham

The rogue student of the Lavoisiers who framed Jack and provided the Tincture. Hazel confronts him in London; he admits the Tincture is irreversible, yet she takes his inheritance and moves on.

Key Decisions and Consequences

• Refusing the Tincture: At the Companions’ meeting, Hazel declines immortality because she doesn’t want to watch loved ones die—“it’s too permanent.” This preserves her humanity and sets her apart from the corrupt society.
• Serving as the Companions’ surgeon: She agrees to repair their injuries, gaining access to their secrets but also becoming complicit. She ultimately reclaims her moral compass by betraying them to save Charlotte.
• Faking Princess Charlotte’s death: This act destroys her reputation but secures Charlotte’s freedom. Hazel accepts the fallout and plans to start over in America.
• Consuming the Tincture (unintentionally?): While evidence is ambiguous, she survives Marie‑Anne’s gunshot because she has taken the Tincture—presumably from the vial she grabbed or from a prior dose. This decision, whether accidental or deliberate, ties her to Jack forever.
• Marrying Jack: She chooses love over societal approval, leaving London for a life that blends mortality and immortality.

Theme and Symbol Connections

• Immortality and Mortality: Hazel’s refusal of the Tincture embodies the novel’s central debate. She values the natural cycle of life and fears the emptiness of endless years. Her later acceptance of an immortal life with Jack complicates but doesn’t negate her earlier stance—she adapts out of love.
• Gender and Medical Authority: Hazel’s entire career is an act of defiance against a system that bars women from medicine. She masquerades as a man, writes a treatise under her own name, and ultimately gains admission to King’s College in Manhattan. Her story illustrates the slow fight for women’s place in science.
• Love and Sacrifice: She sacrifices reputation, safety, and her chance at a conventional life to help Charlotte and to be with Jack. Her love for Jack fuels her quest for a reversal of immortality.
• Identity and Disguise: Hazel hides her surgical practice, dresses as a male student, and later stages a royal death. Each disguise advances her goals but also separates her from her true self.
• Social Injustice and Class: Hazel’s false imprisonment and the double standard for women highlight class and gender injustice. She treats the poor regardless of payment, and her patients become her allies.

5 Book‑Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why does Hazel refuse to become immortal when the Companions offer her the Tincture?
   Hazel says she would get bored and doesn’t want to watch everyone she loves die. She sees immortality as a “permanent” commitment she is not ready to make. [Chapter 17]

2. How does Hazel use her surgical skills to help Princess Charlotte fake her death?
   Hazel acquires a female corpse from the Royal College of Surgeons (with Simon’s help) and disguises it as Charlotte. She then “discovers” the body, allowing Charlotte to escape in servant’s clothes. [Chapters 27–28]

3. What is the significance of the mold Hazel finds in Marie‑Anne’s laboratory?
   The mold, growing in a drawer labeled “Kew,” proves that Marie‑Anne has been slowly poisoning King George III with arsenic from green wallpaper. This revelation shatters Hazel’s trust in the Companions and sparks her decision to leave London. [Chapter 29]

4. Does Hazel ever change her mind about wanting to live forever?
   By the epilogue, Hazel has consumed the Tincture—either from the vial she grabbed or during her self‑surgery—and lives immortally with Jack. She does not explicitly change her philosophy; rather, she chooses love and accepts eternity as a consequence. The novel leaves open whether she regrets it.

5. Why does Jack initially refuse to be with Hazel after he returns?
   Jack believes his immortality makes a future impossible: he will never age while Hazel grows old and dies. He cannot bear to say goodbye, so he pushes her away, saying he wishes he had stayed dead. [Chapter 23]

Internal Links

• Main book page
• Immortality and mortality theme
• Gender and medical authority theme
• Love and sacrifice theme
• Identity and disguise theme
• Social injustice and class theme
• Ending explained
• Questions and answers