Social Injustice and Class in Immortality by Dana Schwartz

Thematic Claim: Class as Invisible Cage

Dana Schwartz’s Immortality argues that social class determines who lives, who dies, and who gets to live forever. The novel exposes a system where the wealthy manipulate laws, medicine, and even immortality to preserve their power, while the poor are punished for surviving. Through three interlocking strands—Hazel Sinnett’s false imprisonment, the criminalization of abortion, and the secret society of the Companions to the Death—the book shows that injustice is not random but engineered by the elite.

Hazel’s False Imprisonment: The Law Protects the Powerful

When Hazel treats Mary (Florence Fitzpatrick) for a miscarriage, she violates no ethical code—she saves a life. Yet the law, embodied by Lord Ellenborough’s Act, treats her as a criminal. The judge refuses her a barrister, and the hearing is rigged: Florence is coerced by her husband and landlady into testifying against Hazel under threat of prosecution. Hazel, despite being a lady of some standing, is powerless because she is a woman practicing medicine without a license. Her false imprisonment in the Tolbooth reveals that justice is a privilege reserved for those who conform to class and gender roles. Her uncle Lord Almont never answers her letters, showing that even family loyalty bends to social reputation.

Abortion Laws: The Poor Pay with Their Lives

The abortion subplot exposes how the law punishes poor women while protecting the men who impregnate them. Florence, a servant, is abandoned by the father—implied to be a man of status—and forced into desperate measures. She nearly dies from a back-alley procedure, and when Hazel saves her, the system turns Florence into a witness for the prosecution rather than a victim. The judge’s language (“mercy” for testifying) shows the state’s control over women’s bodies. Hazel’s own maid Iona is terrified of the hanging that follows a quickening, underlining the constant threat faced by the lower classes. The novel contrasts this with the elite’s ability to avoid consequences—Beecham, after all, has evaded justice for murder for decades.

The Companions to the Death: Elite Immortality

The Companions—Marie-Anne Lavoisier, Lord Byron, Voltaire, Benjamin Banneker—present themselves as progressive forces. They influence politics, fund abolition, and support female surgeons. Yet their exclusivity is a form of class privilege. They decide who deserves immortality based on “contributing to positive change,” a subjective standard that mirrors the gatekeeping of high society. Hazel is invited not for her character but because she is famous—“the only female surgeon in Britain”—and useful for their surgical repairs. The requirement to sacrifice a pinkie finger symbolically marks membership; it is a physical cost only those willing to mutilate themselves for the group can pay. The Tincture of Immortality itself is a resource hoarded by the few, a literal embodiment of how the rich can buy their way out of death.

Character and Symbol Connections

Hazel Sinnett: A woman caught between classes—her family has status but she has lost their support. Her surgical skills are her only currency, yet she is still subject to the law’s whim. She rejects the Tincture initially, calling it “too permanent,” but eventually takes it, becoming part of the elite she once opposed. This arc questions whether surviving injustice requires compromising one’s principles.

Jack Currer: A resurrection man hanged for Beecham’s crimes. His class and profession mark him as disposable. After surviving the hanging—thanks to the Tincture—he endures a shipwreck and blackmail, showing that even immortality cannot erase poverty. His eyepatch and scars become badges of working-class endurance.

Marie-Anne Lavoisier: The ultimate symbol of elite privilege. She shoots Hazel to force her back into service, treating people as tools. Her reduction to a head in the epilogue (limbless, dependent) visualizes the dehumanization that comes with immortality when one has no body—a grotesque parody of the power she once held.

Symbols:

• The Tincture of Immortality represents class as a biological destiny: only the chosen few access it.
• The Missing Pinkie Finger is the price of admission to the Companions, a ritual sacrifice that marks belonging.
• The Arsenic-Laced Green Wallpaper (from the Anatomy series) reappears here as a hidden poison of domestic life, symbolizing the invisible dangers that kill the poor while the rich wallpaper over them.
• The Marigold Dress Hazel leaves behind when she chooses Jack over royal service marks her rejection of aristocratic clothing—and the identity that comes with it.

Complexity and Contradiction

The novel does not present a simple morality tale. The Companions are genuinely dedicated to progress: they fund abolition, support Whig politicians to end slavery, and push for female medical education. Yet their methods are coercive. Marie-Anne shoots Hazel to force her back to work, and Byron threatens to kill or imprison her if she refuses. The “elite circle” is founded on silencing dissent.

Hazel herself is a complicated protagonist. She benefits from her family name even in disgrace; she can afford a maid and a manor. Her eventual acceptance of immortality makes her complicit in the system she critiques. The epilogue shows her writing a treatise that invents a fake disease to cover her secret—she now participates in the same manipulation of knowledge that Beecham used. The novel asks: Is it possible to fight injustice without becoming part of the unjust system? The answer remains ambiguous.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Hazel’s false imprisonment illustrate the class bias of the legal system?
Hazel is denied a barrister, held without trial, and her letters to her uncle are never delivered. The judge treats her as subhuman because she is a woman practicing medicine. The system prioritizes punishing women like Florence over protecting them, showing that law serves the powerful.

2. What role does Lord Ellenborough’s Act play in the theme of social injustice?
The Act criminalizes abortion after “quickening,” threatening death for both the woman and the practitioner. It turns desperate women into criminals and doctors into potential felons. The novel shows how this law disproportionately harms poor women who cannot afford private, safe care, while wealthy families can avoid prosecution.

3. Why does Hazel initially refuse the Tincture from the Companions?
She says immortality feels “too permanent” and fears watching loved ones die. More deeply, she senses that joining the Companions means surrendering her autonomy—she would become their surgeon, bound to their rules. Her refusal is a class-conscious choice to remain vulnerable but free.

4. In what ways are the Companions both progressive and elitist?
They support abolition, women’s education, and scientific advancement. Yet they decide membership by their own standards, weaponize immortality to control others, and treat outsiders as disposable (e.g., shooting Hazel to coerce her). Their progressivism is limited to what benefits their own circle.

5. How does the epilogue complicate the novel’s criticism of class privilege?
Hazel and Jack immigrate to America, where Hazel eventually enters medical school—but only after she becomes immortal. Her treatise hides her secret, suggesting she now manipulates truth like the elites. Marie-Anne is reduced to a head, a living punishment, yet she still hosts intellectual salons. The ending shows that escaping class structures is nearly impossible, even with immortality.