The Elephant Man

“See Mother Nature uncorseted and in malignant rage! Tuppence.” 

Ross attempts to entice crowds to pay a fee to stare at Merrick. He sells Merrick as more animal than human, unrestrained by anything as civilized and human-made as a corset. Perhaps part of Merrick’s performance requires the simulation of animalistic rage, but of course, he proves to be extremely gentle with no temper or tendency to lose control. This dehumanization was typical for advertising “freak-show” acts, often characterizing features like extra hairiness or unusual size as proof that the person was part animal.

“Mr. Treves, you have shown a profound and unknown disorder to us. You have said when he leaves here it is for his exhibition again. I do not think it ought to be permitted. It is a disgrace. It is a pity and a disgrace. It is an indecency in fact. It may be a danger in ways we do not know. Something ought to be done about it.” 

The voice in the crowd at the medical lecture expresses an outrage that he can’t quite articulate. At first, it seems that he is a voice of reason, calling out exploitation as indecent. But the next scene reveals that Merrick himself was arrested and run out of the city. This person voices the violent rage that leads crowds to become bloodthirsty upon seeing Merrick. The person is afraid of what he doesn’t understand, so he sees Merrick as a danger.

“Little vocabulary problem, eh? Poor things. Looks like they put your noses to the grindstone and forgot to take them away.”

Merrick attempts to befriend the three microcephalic women at the fair in Belgium. He is kind and sympathetic when they don’t understand him, assuming language differences. He also recognizes that the women have been exploited and overworked because they are, like him, considered inhuman. Merrick continues to offer warmth and comfort to the women, even as he is being beaten. He is far more concerned with their well-being than his own, already showing that the depth of his humanity exceeds that of anyone else in the play.

“What’s he do, lecture you on your anatomy? People who think right don’t look like that then, do they? Yeah, glung glung, glung, glung.” 

Before leaving Merrick with the conductor, Ross called Merrick an “imbecile” who can only speak his own name. At the train station in London, a policeman assumes that this is true, regardless of Merrick’s repeated attempts to speak. The policeman sees physical disability and believes that it is necessarily accompanied by intellectual disability. His prejudices keep him from seeing that Merrick is obviously trying to communicate.

“It is a disorder, not a disease; it is in no way contagious though we don’t in fact know what it is. I have found however that there is a deep superstition in those I’ve tried, they actually believe he somehow brought it on himself, this thing, and of course it is not that at all.” 

As Treves attempts to prepare Miss Sandwich to meet Merrick, he tries to understand and explain why each prospective nurse runs away in terror. Miss Sandwich has seen terrible illnesses and conditions as a missionary, some of which were fairly gruesome. But although she has seen photos of Merrick and insists that she isn’t superstitious, and that she understands that there is no danger of communicability, she too runs away in terror. She shows that the fear and revulsion Merrick receives are beyond logic and reason.

“The psalms he loves, and the book of Job perplexes him, he says, for he cannot see that a just God must cause suffering, as he puts it, merely then to be merciful. Yet that Christ will save him he does not doubt, so he is not resentful.”

Bishop How reports on Merrick’s faith, revealing the unexpected information that Merrick, who has suffered his entire life, does not identify with Job. In the story of Job, God allows Job to be tested by years of unending hardship and grief to prove that Job will stay faithful. Job does remain faithful, and he is rewarded for it, but his suffering is purposeless, as Job was already being faithful. This suggests either that Merrick sees his own suffering as purposeful or that he hasn’t led such a wretched life of misery as Treves, Ross, and others believe.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Gomm? With us?”

Treves announces that he plans to show Merrick how to fit in to society, and Gomm responds unenthusiastically. Treves’s question highlights one of the larger questions in the play. Treves has assumed that something is broken or underdeveloped in Merrick’s personhood because of his appearance. In fact, Treves learns that there is very much that is wrong with his own views of the world and very much that is perfectly right with Merrick.

“If all that’d stared at me’d been sacked—there’d be whole towns out of work.” 

Merrick gently expresses his challenges to Treves’s and Gomm’s rigid social rules throughout the play. Merrick doesn’t like when people stare at him. But he also doesn’t want severe punishment handed out on his behalf for the sake of principle. Gomm feels the need to enforce the promised punishment as a way of maintaining authority. But Merrick looks at the individual stakes of the decision and prefers mercy.

“By god, they are all splendid. Merrick will be so pleased. It will be the day he becomes a man like other men.” 

Mrs. Kendal has just rehearsed several different readings of her introduction to Merrick, highlighting that she sees this as an acting job. Treves’s enthusiasm shows that he believes that Merrick’s manhood hinges on a successful interaction with a woman, and he has no faith that it can happen without intentional deceit and manipulation.

“But sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams. Because it is. Do you know what happens when dreams cannot get out?” 

Merrick’s comment foreshadows the end of the play, when the heaviness of his head full of dreams will cause his death when he tries to sleep in a “normal” position. His life has been limiting, and Merrick has not been permitted to pursue certain dreams or even express that he has them.

“If he did not love her, why should there be a play? Looking in a mirror and seeing nothing. That is not love. It was all an illusion. When the illusion ended he had to kill himself.” 

Merrick doesn’t want to see himself reflected in others, unlike the others in the play who find affection for Merrick by seeing themselves reflected in him. This suggests that although he never articulates it, he sees their kindness and friendship as an illusion. When the illusion ends, Merrick believes he must die by suicide.

“I did not begin to build at first. Not till I saw what St. Phillip’s really was. It is not stone and steel and glass; it is an imitation of grace flying up and up from the mud. So I make my imitation of an imitation. But even in that is heaven to me, Mrs. Kendal.” 

Merrick does not believe that the grace extended to him from Treves or the others is truly sincere. Each person has some sort of unconscious or conscious ulterior motive, even if it’s only about self-validation. The church is an imitation of God, and charity is an imitation of love. But even though he is aware of this, the imitation is so much more than anyone has ever offered him, and he is satisfied to be content with it.

“Props of course. To make himself. As I make me.” 

Treves asks why Merrick’s benefactors have given him so many implements of grooming as Christmas gifts, gifts he cannot use. Mrs. Kendal understands immediately. There is no illusion that Merrick can make his appearance unremarkable with razors and hairbrushes. They are simply normal props to supplement his construction of traditional identity, just as Mrs. Kendal purposefully constructs her own as both a person and an actress playing a role.

“Merrick visibly worse than 86-87. That, as he rises higher in the consolations of society, he gets visibly more grotesque is proof definitive he is like me. Like his condition, which I make no sense of, I make no sense of mine.” 

Treves, like the others, sees Merrick as a reflection of himself. Merrick’s condition is worsening at the same time that he is becoming more accepted into society. Treves identifies with him because Treves is becoming more prestigious and celebrated in his work, which makes him feel more and more pessimistic and opportunistic. This feeling comes to a head when he admits feeling helpless to save his patients and cries on the bishop’s shoulder.

“This is the hospital. Not a marketplace. Don’t forget it, ever. Sorry. Not you. Me.” 

After Lord John scams Treves, Treves is disillusioned by the betrayal from someone he trusted and disgusted with himself for allowing his desire for money to interfere with his work as a doctor. At the beginning of the play, Treves was taken aback by the suggestion that the pay would eventually not seem like enough, indignantly expressing his passion for the work. He makes this statement out loud but must clarify that he fully blames himself.

“I have to. Too heavy to lay down. My head. But to sleep alone; that is worst of all.” 

Merrick sees his inability to lie flat while sleeping as a marker of abnormality. But the heaviness of his head is not only literal but figurative. No matter how much friendship and conversation he receives, Merrick is still lonely. He considers the lack of companionship or a person to share his bed to be another marker of abnormality.

“Yes. Some women are lucky to look well, that is all. It is a rather arbitrary gift; it has no really good use, though it has uses, I will say that. Anyway it does not signify very much.”

Mrs. Kendal asserts that beauty is superficial and bestowed at random. But she has never lived in a body that others deem so repulsive that they become violent. Just as Mrs. Kendal can never understand what it means to not only not be beautiful but to be considered extremely ugly, Merrick can never understand what it feels like to take beauty for granted in a world that values it so much.

“Are you not ashamed? Do you know what you are? Don’t you know what is forbidden?”

Treves’s response to catching Mrs. Kendal showing her naked body to Merrick is cruel. It reveals his unspoken disgust for Merrick and underlying belief that Merrick is not quite human. This is exacerbated by Treves’s shame and embarrassment at the idea of sex. He is mortified at the idea that Merrick should have sexual urges toward a woman who is seemingly so far above his station or that a beautiful actress like Mrs. Kendal would “lower herself” to allow Merrick to see her naked.

“You are. I am. They are. Most are. No disgrace, John. Disgrace is to be a stupid whore. Give it for free. Not capitalize on the interest in you. Not to have a manager then is stupid.” 

Ross’s visit is unwelcome for many reasons, including his previous cruelty and abandonment, absconding with Merrick’s money. But his real offense is telling Merrick plainly what he sees through the illusion. Not only is everyone using Merrick because they want to stare at him, but everyone sells themselves in one way or another, and Merrick is giving away what others would charge for in exchange for the pretense of friendship. But Merrick has changed, and he no longer sees himself as an animal or property to be bought and sold. He understands that he deserves friendship and human connection, and he will take as much of that friendship as is offered.

“Oh what? What does it matter? Don’t you see? If I love, if any surgeon loves her or any patient or not, what does it matter? And what conceivable difference to you?” 

Treves becomes frustrated when Merrick pushes him to define the difference between Merrick seeing Mrs. Kendal naked and Treves seeing a surgical patient naked. Where Merrick is leading Treves is to the realization that motives are less important than actions. It doesn’t matter if Treves loves a patient, or if Mrs. Kendal loves Merrick. The outcome is the same. Merrick has taken this view of all of his relationships, focusing on actions rather than reasons.

“Had we caught it early, it might have been different. But his condition has already spread both East and West. The truth is, I am afraid, we are dealing with an epidemic.”

In Treves’s dream, Merrick gives an academic lecture about him that mirrors the one Treves gave at the beginning of the play. But in this case, Treves isn’t a rarity or an abnormality. He is “normal.” He is attempting to spread his idea of normalcy to Merrick. Merrick’s language suggests that this spreading of Treves’s “condition” as an epidemic all over the East and West is referring to imperialism and the imposition of British culture and ideas on other countries.

“No, sir, I do not. Yet he makes all of us think he is deeply like ourselves. And yet we’re not like each other. I conclude that we have polished him like a mirror, and shout hallelujah when he reflects us to the inch. I have grown sorry for it.” 

Treves doesn’t doubt Merrick’s sincerity or faith, but he finally recognizes that they have all been imposing their own beliefs and personalities on Merrick instead of seeing him as an individual. The bishop, however, does not understand what Treves is saying.

“I am an extremely successful Englishman in a successful and respected England which informs me daily by the way it lives that it wants to die. I am in despair in fact. Science, observation, practice, deduction, having led me to these conclusions, can no longer serve as consolation. I apparently see things others don’t.” 

Treves finally uncovers the root of the issue that has been eating away at him. Earlier in the play, he asks Gomm if there is something wrong with them that they shouldn’t want Merrick to be like them. Now he understands that as a doctor, he has been trying to save the lives of people who actively contribute to their own deaths through their adherence to rigid social rules and access to too much money and resources. Suddenly, scientific inquiry is not enough of a prize to make this frustration worth it.