Can Such Things Be? · Chapter
A Creature of Habit explained
In a Montana mining camp in 1865, gambler Henry 'Gray Hank' Graham murders miner Dreyfuss after a card dispute, is swiftly tried by vigilantes, and hanged.
What happens
In a Montana mining camp in 1865, gambler Henry 'Gray Hank' Graham murders miner Dreyfuss after a card dispute, is swiftly tried by vigilantes, and hanged. After the body is cut down, it bizarrely runs through the panicked crowd until Dr. Arnold Spier cuts the rope and lays it flat, remarking that dead bodies are creatures of habit.
Themes in this chapter
Death and the Supernatural
The hanged man's corpse exhibits unnatural movement, blurring the line between life and death.
Violence and Mortality
The murder and public execution highlight the brutal reality of frontier violence and death.
The Uncanny and the Grotesque
The corpse's grotesque 'prancing' and the crowd's horrified reaction evoke a deeply unsettling scene.
Characters to notice
- Henry Graham
Gambler known as 'Gray Hank' who murders Dreyfuss and is hanged by vigilantes.
- Dr. Arnold Spier
Physician who pronounces Graham dead and later cuts the rope, stopping the corpse's macabre run.
Key passages
“The dead are creatures of habit.”
Corpses tend to behave in predictable ways based on their last living actions.
Dr. Spier's explanation for why the hanged man ran when placed upright but lay still when laid on his back.