Rhetoric
Mary Roach uses devices such as rheotircal questions, metaphors, and personification. These devices are used to relate to the reader more, instead of just talking about decaying and dying bodies. As students, many might find the book gross or that the book has too much information. However, by using humor and rhetoric devices, she is able to connect to the audience and tell her message and purpose even more clearly. For example, she explains "the brain being the seat of the soul, the chief commander of life and death," (p. 186 Stiff) meaning that the brain is the most important part of the body; without this, there is no other function in the body. Details like this ensure to the reader that what exactly Roach is trying to say, the brain is the most vital part of any human being; cadavers brains that still function could help save another life, the all around purpose of Stiff. Sometimes, when Roach is explaining what can happen to a person if a certain situation occurs, she uses personification to make sure the audience understands what's happeniing; "a human heart removed from its blood supply can continue beating for as long as a minute or two, until the cells begin to starve." (p. 180 Stiff) Roach uses simple terms to connect the audience in explaining the very essence of humans in scientific research.