Student Question
What does "Have you seen it again?" refer to in "The Body Snatcher"?
Quick answer:
The phrase "Have you seen it again?" in "The Body Snatcher" refers to a haunting reminder of past crimes involving murder victims used for medical research. Fettes asks this question to Dr. Macfarlane, recalling their involvement in trafficking corpses, including the murder of Gray. The "it" signifies their shared guilt and the supernatural appearance of Gray's body years later, symbolizing their unresolved conscience and moral corruption.
The phrase “Have you seen it again?” alludes to a haunting reminder of immorality. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story “The Body Snatcher,” Fettes utters this question to Dr. Macfarlane as the doctor flees past him. The “it” refers to a murder victim used for medical research.
Decades earlier, Fettes and Macfarlane were medical students who worked under Dr. K—, their anatomy professor and boss. Dr. K— ordered them to receive corpses that would serve as models for class. Initially, Fettes ignored the possibility that the dead bodies were murder victims for sale.
His mind was closed against all general considerations. He was incapable of interest in the fate and fortunes of another, the slave of his own desires and low ambitions.
Even his boss Dr. K— suppressed such suspicions.
“They bring the body, and we pay the price,” he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration —“QUID PRO...
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QUO.” And, again, and somewhat profanely, “Ask no questions,” he would tell his assistants, “for conscience’ sake.” There was no understanding that the subjects were provided by the crime of murder.
Yet conscience is what bothers Fettes—both as an old man in the present and a young medical student in the past. After recognizing the face of one of the purchased corpses, Fette realized that he was an accomplice in the trafficking of dead bodies for medical research. Yet despite this crisis of conscience, he continued to aid and abet his boss.
Macfarlane was a doctor also working under Dr. K— but superior to Fette. When confronted by Fette regarding their trafficking of murder victims, Macfarlane ordered Fette not to say anything or even acknowledge the crime.
The next best thing for me is not to recognize it. ... I don’t. You may, if you please. I don’t dictate, but I think a man of the world would do as I do.
Macfarlane later murdered a rude, insulting, and profligate man named Gray; then he sold the body to Dr. K—, paying himself for the corpse and Fette for silence. At first, Fette suffered enormous guilt; by the following week, however, his guilt had dissipated as Macfarlane had predicted.
Later, the two men robbed a grave in order to supply the class needs of Dr. K—. They dug up and bagged the body of a sixty-year-old woman. During their journey home, they opened the bag and discovered with horror that the object in the bag had transformed into “the body of the dead and long-dissected Gray.”
Therefore, years later when Fettes asks Macfarlane, “Have you seen it again?” he reminds the doctor of their past crimes. Up until this point, Macfarlane probably never felt any remorse for his actions. Although older than Fettes, Macfarlane appears younger and healthier. Fettes remarks,
This man, perhaps, may have an easy conscience and a good digestion. Conscience!
Stevenson based “The Body Snatcher” on Dr. Robert Knox, a nineteenth-century anatomist who purchased corpses from the infamous murderers William Burke and William Hare.
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