blanket. Ren, horrified, fears that it is Dolly—but, when he pulls back the blanket, he does not recognize the man lying in a pan full of brown liquid. Both of his legs are gone, and there is a large cavity in his abdomen. All of his organs are missing, leaving only “a mass of red and white and bits of purple” left. Ren does not think he looks like a human anymore, with “his face fallen in.” Ren notices that the man’s hair had been blond and there is a bluebird tattoo on his shoulder.

Doctor Milton pours the ground-up powder into a jar full of a thick liquid and pulls out his watch to check the time, explaining that the powder must soak for ten minutes. He joins Ren beside the table, looking at the body. He observes that Ren is probably curious about why he uses whiskey. He dips a finger into the pan and lifts it to Ren’s arm so that the brown liquid runs down his skin. He points out how quickly the alcohol whiskey evaporates, which helps to keep the bodies from “decaying” too quickly. However, bodies are only usable for several days, and Doctor Milton is trying to find a more effective means of preserving them. He uses the thin end of his pipe to poke the dead man between his ribs, telling Ren that the man “probably saved ten lives today.” Doctor Milton observes that he cannot claim that he has done the same and asks Ren if he can. Ren, however, cannot answer—he is becoming nauseated from the smell of the whiskey and the sight of the dead man’s spine poking out from his muscles. Doctor Milton retrieves a bottle of lavender water and pours some of it into a handkerchief, which he gives to Ren. He says that Ren’s reaction “happens to everyone at first,” but that “you grow used to it.” Ren breathes in the lavender aroma and asks how anyone could become accustomed to such a thing. Doctor Milton replies that, just like with “anything unpleasant,” one must “remove your senses from the process, and look beyond the task at hand.” Eventually, one becomes numb, “and you find that you can do anything.”

Ren removes the handkerchief and tries to look at the body again, but he gags and resumes breathing in the lavender. Doctor Milton appears dissatisfied with Ren and changes the subject, reminding him that they were supposed to bring five more bodies to the hospital for his students to study. Ren leans against the wall, trying to steady himself. He tells Doctor Milton that they are all leaving, and that they will not bring more bodies. Doctor Milton expresses his disappointment, but he asks how Ren plans to pay for Tom’s newly-set leg and the rest of Mrs. Sands’s care. Ren offers him McGinty’s gold watch, which Doctor Milton inspects before handing it back and proposing a “better idea.” He writes out an agreement with an ink pen and hands both to Ren, saying that he can sign his name with an X if he cannot write it out. The agreement requires Ren to promise his body to the hospital after he dies, “to be used for the greater purposes of science, to further the understanding and knowledge of anatomy, for the benefit of the human race and for all of mankind.” Ren holds the pen, which is as heavy as Doctor Milton’s surgical knife. He imagines the knife cutting into his body, and “what a job it would be.” He writes out his new name: “the one that seemed so unfamiliar, the one he could never have imagined for himself.”

Analysis

The novel’s ongoing themes of the dehumanization and the commodification of bodies merge during the scene in Doctor Milton’s office. Ren finds a corpse and understandably responds by humanizing it; he panics, fearing that it is Dolly. However, he immediately begins dehumanizing the body when he sees that it is not anyone he knows, and that it has lost its legs and organs. The man no longer appears human; his body is “a mass of red and white and bits of purple,” and his face has “fallen in.” Ren seems unable to think of the man as a person anymore because he cannot accept or cope with the trauma that his body endured. Though Doctor Milton claims that the man “probably saved ten lives today,” the caved-in appearance of the man’s face is certainly meant to elicit distrust in the doctor’s intentions. The scene also recalls the inhumane leg amputation that Ren overheard in chapter 14 and how the patient’s face also looked “caved-in” as he was carried out of the operating room. Therefore, it is possible that the man in Doctor Milton’s office suffered significant pain upon death. It is also possible that Doctor Milton killed him in order to harvest his organs.

Furthermore, when Doctor Milton perceives Ren’s immense discomfort, he encourages him to “remove your senses from the process” and “look beyond the task at hand.” In doing so, Doctor Milton explicitly instructs Ren to overcome his feelings of empathy and horror so he can become numb to the suffering of others. According to Doctor Milton, doing so will empower a person to be able to do “anything,” suggesting that he is capable of even murder if it suits his agenda. When Ren attempts to take a moral stand by refusing to bring Doctor Milton more bodies for his experiments and teachings, Doctor Milton offers Ren the option of commodifying his own body by promising it to the hospital when he dies. Though Ren has likely endangered himself by agreeing to this bizarre arrangement, his decision to sacrifice his body to help his friends represents a significant moment of self-empowerment. Ren not only values himself by commodifying his body, but also he signs with his true name, which is an act of claiming his identity.