The Man Who Could Cheat Death story
In Paris during 1890, 104-year-old Georges Bonnet is a sculptor who maintains a youthful appearance by regularly committing murder and using his victims’ parathyroid glands as an elixir to ward off the signs of age. When Bonnet requires a vital surgery to be undertaken he asks his old colleague Prof. Ludwig Weiss to perform it. He declines and Bonnet then blackmails Pierre Gerard into performing the operation by endangering the life of Janine Dubois, a young lady in whom both Bonnet and Gerard are romantically interested.
8 total · 3 major · 5 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| anti-aging technology | major | The 104-year-old Georges Bonnet maintains a youthful appearance by regularly committing murder and using his victims’ parathyroid glands as an elixir to ward off the signs of age. |
| romantic love | major | Georges Bonnet and Janine Dubois. |
| the quest for immortality | major | The 104-year-old Georges Bonnet maintains a youthful appearance by regularly committing murder and using his victims’ parathyroid glands as an elixir to ward off the signs of age. |
| killing to survive | minor | Should Georges Bonnet keep on killing women and extracting their glands in order to maintain his youth or let himself age at a natural rate? Georges' old frien Prof. Ludwig Weiss urged him to age naturally, but he didn't follow the professor advice. |
| love triangle | minor | Georges Bonnet and Pierre Gerard were both romantically interested in Janine Dubois. |
| overpopulated world | minor | Georges Bonnet didn't publish his discovery about how to achieve immortality because it would result in the world becoming overpopulated. |
| playing God with nature | minor | Pierre Gerard considered it an offense against God to perform a life-extending surgery on Georges Bonnet. |
| rapid aging effect | minor | In the end Georges Bonnet died in agony from rapid aging. |