Bodies at that time were not protected by law. Therefore, for ordinary people, they either worry about the theft of their loved ones' bodies all the time, or they simply give up their jobs and pick up shovels and sacks to grab the bodies.
All this is caused by the development of medicine.
At that time, anatomy schools were blooming all over the UK, but because of the policy of commuting the death penalty, doctors faced a serious "shortage of supply". As a result, some teachers encourage students to steal corpses for research, and some schools in Scotland can even use corpses in lieu of tuition fees.
Under such circumstances, in order to quickly get more corpses to make a fortune, more serious crimes seem to be unavoidable.
The Hale and Burke case of 1829 was one of the most notorious at the time. Under the temptation of huge profits, they changed from selling corpses to making corpses.
In order to keep the body intact, their "manufacturing" process mostly involves Hale pressing a pillow against the victim's face, and Burke pressing it with his fat body to suffocate him. As a result, in later English, "burke" has the meaning of "suffocating to death".
Don't think Hale and Burke are just extreme cases. Not long after this case was sentenced, the news of murdering others to resell corpses appeared on the streets of London again... As a result, the corpses used to explore the mysteries of life caused panic in the society.
Finally, the British government introduced the "Anatomy Act", which stipulated that unclaimed corpses in prisons or workhouses could be used for medical autopsy, and the crime of corpses improved.
And this layer of horror that has pervaded British society for many years, I think, more or less infiltrated Mary Shelley's consciousness, and even sneaked into that rainy summer night by Lake Geneva in 1816. Otherwise, how could the scene of stealing corpses for medical research in her book be so familiar?
"In the middle of the night, I eagerly entered the hideout of the mysteries of nature... Who could have known the horrors I experienced in my unknown work? I have collected skeletons in my sinful fingers to find out the amazing secrets of the human skeleton." ("Frankenstein")
You should know this story: a night of lightning, a mad genius, an ugly Yes, the blasphemous Frankenstein... yes, she was the one who wrote the first science fiction thriller.
After watching this story, which has been interpreted and adapted into countless film and television dramas, I don’t know how many people are as puzzled as I am: How could such a young girl use her elegant writing to describe such an absurd and horrifying story in detail?
In this regard, Mary has an official answer: At the time, at the age of 19, as the wife of the great poet Shelley, she lived in a villa on the shore of Lake Geneva, and spent all day on the lake and chatting with Byron and a young doctor.
Mary was only 16 when she met Shelley, and Shelley was already married, but the two fell in love and decided to run away.
It was a rainy summer, and everyone was trapped in the villa by the rain and panicked, so Byron suggested that we might as well write a ghost story.
Everyone who agreed with the idea started to write, but Mary was slow to start. However, after reading the ghost stories written by other people and listening to her husband and Byron's many long talks about medicine and the origin of life, Mary finally had a terrifying inspiration. She had a dream--
"I saw a pale-faced student specializing in sorcery kneeling beside a assembled human body, and saw an extremely ugly and terrifying ghostly man lying on the ground. Under the mechanical action, I saw this human body move unnaturally and listlessly. He is alive." ("Frankenstein" Author's Introduction")
However, is all this just because of a nightmare?
Let's not talk about us now, think about the UK two years after Mary's nightmare, people are surrounded by all kinds of corpse and autopsy hunting rumors, and they may really encounter this situation: after learning that After receiving a large box of ham, cheese, eggs and yarn, I opened the package with anticipation, but found a dead man lying quietly inside...
Therefore, when they see that "Frankenstein" is full of weird medical skills and monsters assembled with stumps, they will really believe that this is a little girl in her twenties who just wrote it based on her own dreams and imagination. Is it right?
In addition to the background of the industrial revolution, medical development, feminist awareness and rampant corpse theft in society, as well as the nightmare on the shore of Lake Geneva, is there any more powerful factor that inspired her creation?
Of course, we certainly don't have the opportunity to question Mary two hundred years ago. In fact, the lack of answers does not detract from the evergreen charm of this story.
But when in doubt, there is a story.
So today, two hundred years later, this miniseries, The Legend of Frankenstein, answers this question very credibly under the most absurd premise—perhaps because it’s all true. They are trying to bring Mary Shelley's Frankenstein back to life ("Bring Mary Shelley's Frankenstein back to life")
Imagine that in England in the early 19th century, it was a period of social unrest and crime, floating corpses, no matter what Natural disasters or man-made disasters should not be uncommon.
But what if this floating corpse was surgically stitched together from different parts of seven or eight children's corpses?
Such a case is bound to cause an uproar in the society at a time when surgeons have been criticized by the public, it is a critical period for the passage of the "Anatomy Act", and 9 years after "Frankenstein" has been selling well.
So people can't help but wonder, is the murderer an extremist religious person who hates surgeons, or a crazy Frankenstein from the book "Frankenstein"?
In short, this case worthy of thorough investigation also gives us the opportunity to ask the middle-aged Mary from the perspective of the male protagonist who solved the case.
Guess what the answer will be this time when she has experienced the death of three children and her husband, and has been tortured by death?
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