The Elephant Man and Essentialism

John Merrick known as The Elephant Man in the play, The Elephant Man. He was a man that had physical deformities. Deformities that deemed him different than the society around him. Labeled as a "freak." He made a living traveling with the Circus in the Freak Show. Frederick Treves a surgical doctor takes Merrick in to study his condition. It's there, at hospital, that Merrick is finds his sense of self. Up until then everyone sort of viewed him as inferior to them. Based solely on his looks. His story is put in the Times magazine. Patrons send him money to keep him at the hospital, as a way of showing they care for him, yet only a few actually visit him. Which in the their minds, they still feel superior to him. Even though the contribution looks as if they sympathize with him. The only people that can sympathize with Merrick are the few people that got to know him. In the story those that are closest to him talk about how they see themselves in John Merrick. He is just as normal as anyone else, he has dreams, desires, morals, intelligence, and aspirations. Everything that any human being would have. Yet, he is still sort of viewed as spectacle. It seems as though, no matter how similar Merrick's mentality is to society's, he is always going to be shown as a "freak of nature." All because his appearance is way different than the norm. He would end his letters with the same poem each time:

Tis true my form is something odd,

But blaming me is blaming God;

Could I create myself anew

I would not fail in pleasing you.

If I could reach from pole to pole

Or grasp the ocean with a span,

I would be measured by the soul;

The mind's the standard of the man.

All he ever wanted was to be normal, and had no explanation for why he wasn't. Yet, he still went on with life with optimism. At the end of the play Merrick dies in his sleep, trying sleep like a normal person. Before he'd sleep with his head on his knees, so that he wouldn't suffocate. 

Throughout this story Merrick tries to be a normal person. He's trying to find what his true self is. It's hard for him to see his that, because of what he sees and what society shows him. He doesn't physically look like anyone else at the time, so he's left to wonder who he really is with no one to relate to. 

Just like the then in the Victorian Era,  society still gives their attention to "freak shows" or "train wrecks." It's just in media form now. If you read the news now, the headlines read things like "Man with No Face," "Boy with 8 Limbs," "The Tree Man." It's all over the internet; news programs will cover stories like this.  Society will watch or read about it, probably feeling sorry for the person in the story. But at the same time, in a selfish way, feel better about themselves. It's kind of weird combination of feelings. They usually feel bad for the person in the story and also feel good about themselves, and can make them appreciate what they have or how they are. Society always has and maybe always will want to have something to look at, that isn't themselves. And in that, they can find something that is normal to them. When they find that normal, they find themselves. Essentially their true identity.