Purpura's Gore-geous Piece of Writing

My first impression while reading through Purpura's Autopsy Report was that it was a beautifully graphic piece.  My feelings towards the writing style ranged from disgusted to enthralled, often fluctuating somewhere in between and leaving me to question why I was enjoying an essay about bodies flayed open and skin-flaps pulled back over skulls.  As much as I wanted to be mortified by the nature of her story and nothing else, Purpura's crafty use of language and sentence structure allowed me to bypass my discomfort and enjoy the piece as a whole.

I found the section of her essay where she mentions the hilarity of experiencing the autopsies particularly interesting.  She mentions that she can't help but to laugh--which is rather morbid considering she is looking at dead bodies... I don't suspect I would react in the same way...  She questions: "Did I expect, finally, the solemnity of procession?  Death gowned and dancing, scythe raised and cape blowing, leading the others, at dusk over a mountain.  In silhouette,  Fully cinematic."  As if her idea of an autopsy prior to actually witnessing one was that it should be a dramatic affair, fit for an on-screen production.  When she actually observed her first autopsy, it didn't live up to her expectations, causing her to laugh out loud because she had anticipated something much more "cinematic."

The sentence "Then, when everything was lifted out--the mass of organs held in the arms, a cornucopia of dripping fruits hoisted to the hanging scale--there was the spine,"demonstrates the intersection between gore and poetic language.  If I read through the sentence at surface level, I am pleased.  "A cornucopia of dripping fruits" not only sounds pleasant, but also puts an aesthetically satisfying image into my head.  However, when I realize that the fruits to which she is referring to are internal organs and various guts of some sort, I am absolutely disgusted and the image of that lingers even as I read on.  The shock value of reading something like that is very real--and I feel that the beautiful way that Purpura writes about it only makes it more disturbing.  The impact of this piece then, for me, is intensely monumental.