Item 2
Source:
This was collected by me (Elise Suarez) in an informal Zoom interview with my friends and fellow IU students: Emilyann (Emily) Long, Cassie Ruch, Allyson McBride, and Harrison Sutton. The interview took place on Sunday, March 21, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. This legend is told by Allyson McBride, a junior.
Text:
Owen Hall’s Cadaver Arm
Allyson: I like, mostly remember this. So, Owen Hall, in, I don’t know, the 30s? I don’t know if that’s the right time. But like, ish. It used to be like, where they had all the bodies and stuff, like where they stored the cadavers. So they had had them in there. They had this…I think they had like a dumbbell or something that moved the bodies down.
Group interjection: Dumbwaiter!
Allyson: [laughs]. Yeah, not a dumbbell…Yeah, they had a dumbwaiter that would like, take the bodies up and down or whatever, and then one day they stuffed, yknow, the stuff in there and then the dumbwaiter like, crashed and all the body parts like, got broken up and flew everywhere. And like, they found out it’s like, ‘Oh, oh no.’ And then a group of boys or whatever found it and they’re like, ‘We’re gonna…’ no they didn’t find it…or like…there was an arm missing or something? Something with the arm. And that was like a whole thing, everyone was like, ‘where did the arm go?’ And there was like, a group of boys who were like, ‘We’re gonna go scare this girl who’s in a room in Owen Hall and like, freak her out when we have this…we’re gonna use one of our arms and pretend it’s the arm coming back to get her.’ Or something. And then they go in there and open the door to like, scare her and she’s just like huddled in the corner like, eating the arm. I don’t know if that’s accurate but that’s what I remember hearing.
Texture and Context:
This legend, like all of the legends in this report, was collected in an informal context. Because of its informality, the informant, Allyson, was able to pause and recollect the details of the legend, restarting when she made a mistake. Had this been formal, she would have likely had the legend memorized and ready to go. The informality is shown even further with the informant’s use of informal language such as “like” and “um,” and by the group’s correction of her when she used an incorrect word. In a formal setting, these interjections would be looked down upon, and a group would not feel comfortable interrupting the speaker like we all did in this interview.
The context of the collection of this legend is the same for all the legends seen in this report. In the immediate context, Allyson was reminded of this legend after hearing about the previous story, specifically when the boyfriend cut off the girl’s face. This graphic image helped her recall the equally horrific image of a girl eating the arm from a cadaver.
Interpretation:
This legend demonstrates the concept of genre. Like the previous legend, it is exclusive to a college campus, making it a campus legend. Further, it mentions specific details such as building names from the IU campus. It is also a campus legend because it is told by IU students to other IU students. Unlike the previous legend, this does not fall into the genre of supernatural legends, as there is no paranormal activity mentioned. This is similar to the previous legend in that it depicts someone going crazy and could potentially be in the same genre as certain variants of “The Girl in the Yellow Dress.”