The Elephant Man

Perhaps the most striking symbol in the play is the model of St. Phillip’s church, which Merrick builds throughout the second half of the play and completes right before he dies. In his introductory note to the play, Pomerance refers to the church model as a “central metaphor, and the groping toward conditions where it can be built and the building of it are the action of the play” (v). At the start of the play, Merrick can barely communicate and certainly cannot communicate with eloquence. In his most desperate moments, he resorts to one-word statements that are still misunderstood. The world takes his outer form as communication in and of itself, a provocation to violence, without considering that Merrick might have a self, an inner life, or a sense of beauty. Merrick’s visitors see the church project and show how much they underestimate Merrick by marveling at his ability to work with only one functional hand. Merrick sees the church not as a structure made of building materials, but as “an imitation of grace flying up and up from the mud” and his model as an “imitation of an imitation” of grace (38). The model of the church is an act of creativity and beauty, one that rises out of the mud of Merrick’s painful life and uncooperative body.

The idea of grace is at the heart of Merrick’s steadfast belief in religion. Grace is a sudden and unearned act of kindness, forgiveness, or relief. Merrick doesn’t ask for grace, but he offers it constantly. He doesn’t see himself as Job, who suffers unending torments to prove his faith and is finally rewarded. Merrick instead views Job’s suffering as cruel and unnecessary, simply a horrible game over a wager between God and Satan. As he’s presented in the play, Merrick more closely resembles the biblical understanding of Jesus. He isn’t angry or bitter about the unfair condition that shapes his entire existence or about the inevitability of his death. If a church is meant to be a house of God, or an imitation of grace, Merrick seems to be creating a small space for God or grace to exist within the world of science (the hospital). But the model is an imitation of an imitation. As Treves explains, according to Plato, the world is only illusory. Artists can only create illusions of the illusions that exist in the world, which are copies of heaven.

At the beginning of the play, Treves is staunchly invested in his belief that the rules of the Victorian social contract are the measure of morality and decency. Merrick adds a piece to the model each time someone’s behavior chips away at this rule-based illusion of a just world. For instance, Merrick adds a piece when Lord John defrauds Treves; when Treves catches Mrs. Kendal showing her naked body to Merrick and banishes her for that act; and when Treves realizes that Merrick’s increasing social normalcy and acceptance coincide with the deterioration of Merrick’s body. Treves sees Merrick as his student, but by simply questioning the teachings, Merrick teaches Treves that Victorian restraint isn’t the same as goodness or morality. In the end, Treves breaks through those restraints, and Merrick places the final piece. As Merrick says of Romeo in Scene 10, “When the illusion ended he had to kill himself” (33). The completion of the cathedral marks the end of Treves’s illusions of justice and fairness. Merrick adds the final piece in his own illusion of “normalcy” by choosing to lie prone in his bed, thereby dying by suicide.