The Body Snatchers

The third and final tale is “The Body Snatcher,” by Robert Louis Stevenson. This is also the first time that I have read anything about this author at least that is what I remember. He has written many horror stories in his time. This short story that Stevenson wrote is very good. He uses a great use of imagery and really gets you to feel as if you are part of the novel. This tale is actually a tale within a tale. The tale that I just read was very suspenseful. Throughout the whole book I was wondering what was going to happen next. Now I will admit that I was not really too sure where this story was going to go at first but then it started to pick up when Fettes meets the doctor. But here is a plot twist; the doctor went to the same medical school as he did. They were actually both assistants to the anatomy professor. So when Fettes saw doctor MacFarlane he was stunned that he was there. The tale then talks about how the class was always full so they needed lots of bodies that they would be able to dissect. The two boys found themselves finding the bodies in the most unsavory ways. But Fettes thought that something fishy was going on. He thought that these bodies that he was obtaining were people who did not get a natural death. He thought they were being put to death. MacFarlane tells Fettes that he should not worry at all and do not have any suspicions. Towards the end of the story MacFarlane begins to describe to us this body that the two were about to exhume. Unlike the other bodies that they had exhumed, MacFarlane talks about the farmer’s wife. He goes into detail about her death and her life. In this part of the story he also first mentions them as body snatchers. And body snatching is exactly what they did. The two men traveled to the place where the farmer’s wife was buried. After nightfall the two men went to work and dug out the wife. They placed her on the carriage and she should have just been placed so she would not roll around, but she was rolling around on the floor. Here comes a huge surprise. The two men got a better look at the person lying on the floor of the carriage and find out that the person they dug up was not the farmer’s wife but was in fact a reminder of their very first unconscionable act. I think that tale was good and should be put into this book. I also think that it is cruel, sick and twisted that they unbury bodies when they are at peace. But I definitely get the horror feel from reading this tale.