Image Research

GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES

The world shapes people in unnatural ways---it deforms them. Society, Industry and Religion systematically destroy intuitive human behavior in order to control the people.

Time

• Treves is thirty-one years old at the top of the play.
• 1884 England was neck deep in the industrial revolution.
• Leopold’s fifth year as King of the Congo!
• Ross calls his time together with Merrick “lost years”.
• Miss Sandwich meets Merrick at lunchtime. 17
• It is the first time Miss Sandwich has seen Merrick in person.
• The Bishop plans to visit Merrick once a week. 21
• Merrick has been offered a home for his lifetime.
• Snork has only been working at the hospital for a week. 23
• Merrick’s early years were not happy ones. 26
• Treves promises Merrick and Mrs. Kendal to be be back soon. 31
• It is morning when Mrs. Kendal meets Merrick the first time. 31
• It is Christmas when Merrick is born into London society. P 36
• 1889 and Merrick is the toast of London society.
• Merrick is visibly worse in just over a year’s time. He is running out of time. 41
• Gomm tells Treves to break with Lord John today. 44.
• Merrick says Princess Alexandra is too old to see naked.
• Merrick says certain women stop at a certain [perfect] point in life.
• Mrs. Kendal and Merrick first met in 1884.
• Ross is sick and dying. 52
• In the dream Merrick tells Gomm to not keep Treves long.
• In the dream Merrick hopes that normal may be cured in twenty years.
• Merrick has lived longer than Gomm thought he would.
• Snork brings Merrik his lunch. 67
• April and pretty weather. 67
• Snork’s friend died the day before at 28 years. 67
• Gomm first wrote the newspaper asking for contributions for Merrick in 1886
• Merrick died on a Friday afternoon. 70
• Merrick dies in 1890---four years after coming to the hospital.

Place

• The Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. The London. A teaching Hospital.
• Whitechapel was in the heart of a very poor area of London
• A place cruel to life but revealing scientifically. A variety of diseases and afflictions.
• Treves purchased a house on Wimpole street.
• Treves grew up in Dorset---SW England. Coastal and farming. Rural.
• Ross has set up shop on Whitechapel, across the street from the hospital, in an abandoned storefront.
• Merrick is from Leiceister.
• From Whitechapel, Ross takes Merrick to a fair in Brussels to be displayed.
• Pinhead freaks call themselves Queens of the Congo.
• The Congo was a Belgian colony/territory since 1876.
• Merrick hears congo but thinks the word is “cosmos”---space---the heavens.
• Ostend is a port city in Belgium.
• Liverpool St. Station. Merrick’s destination after being abandoned by Ross in Brussels.
• Ross pays the ferry conductor to make sure Merrick gets to Liverpool St. Station.
• Khartoum is the capital of Sudan---the city was held by British and Egyptian forces until it was overrun by religious zealots in 1884ish.
• Merrick has no place to go when he is brought back to London.
• The Policeman and Conductor find a card in Merrick’s hospital from london Hospital.
• A bathtub
• Niger & Ceylon are places Miss sandwich worked as a missionary nurse. Dreadful places full of exotic and horrible diseases. She still can’t bear Merrick.
• The tropics were a geographical petri dish of awful ailments.
• Miss Sandwich was a missionary in Africa.
• Treves can’t find anyone in the hospital to tend to Merrick. He’s had to go outside to find a qualified caregiver.
• The London doesn’t have resources to keep incurables. Merrick is put in a converted isolation wing.
• England ruled in india and Ireland.
• The hospital is Merrick’s home for life. He doesn’t understand what a home is.
• Merrick wishes he could be sent to a home for the blind.
• Treves has to lecture Merrick on what a home is.
• Home
• Merrick grew up in a workhouse---a place for people who could not support themselves. They were harsh and horrible places run like prisons.
• Mrs. Kendal played Cleopatra in Brighton once.
• Treves wants Merrick to have a normal life and a normal home.
• Merrick can see St. Phillip’s Church from his window.
• St. Phillip’s church. 30
• Picadilly exquisite. A dandy. A gentleman. 37
• Lord John has important business in the city.
• Merrick calls the hospital home when speaking to Ross. 51
• Merrick and Treves switch places in the dream. 59
• Dorset dreamer. 59
• The Pinheads are now Queens of the Cosmos---come to take Merrick to heaven.
• Gomm writes the obituary from the House Committee Room at London Hospital.

Time & Place

In 1884 England was deep into the Industrial Revolution. Cities rose up all over the country and people came in from the rural areas to find work and make lives for themselves. The cities were terribly overcrowded and home of some of the worst slums in the world. London Hospital was in the middle of such an impoverished area. The Industrial Revolution undermined and eventually eliminated the need for skilled workers---weavers, carpenters, and iron workers. Many of these people went to the factories or mines---a complete change of pace from their work and lives in the country. In effect, they became part of a larger machine. They worked long hours in extreme heat and in close quarters with poor ventilation. Injury and illness was common.  Families that had once worked together were now separated during the day and worked structured hours to make a living wage. For the first time in history there was a “work time” and a “home time”. The definition of “normal” changed radically from 1784 to 1884. People’s lives were literally shaped by industry---and not usually for the better. This speaks to behavior in The Elephant Man. There is an insidious and counter-intuitive set of rules that the characters live by in the play that is set in motion by the time period and that moves into everyday life. 

On page 41, Treves notes that Merrick’s condition has “ visibly worsened” and he is running out of time. John Merrick’s death is approaching and this forces the action in a couple of important ways. Merrick is a young man who has experienced very little joy in his life. The audience hopes for some sort of redemption for him---some moment of happiness that might somehow balance the suffering he has endured. As time runs out this creates a great sense of urgency. More directly, Treves feels pressure in regards to Merrick’s worsening condition and ultimate demise.  He spends the latter half of the play trying to help Merrick, to find a way to treat him, lessen his suffering, and undo some of the damage he has inadvertently caused. 

Society

• Treves is an up and comer. A golden boy. Young and full of promise.
• Merrick is an abomination---it takes two pages to describe his deformities.
• A voice from the lecture hall deems Merrick “ Indecent. Disgraceful.”
• Ross hopes that Brussels will be freer and easier to work than England.
• A policeman calls Merrick “indecent”.
• A workhouse was a place people who fell out of society were placed to work for their living.
• Treves gives Merrick lessons in manners. 24
• Merrick gets a routine: three meals, roof, protection.
• Merrick has rules that will purportedly make him happy.
• Rules. 28
• Treves wants to give Merrick a “normal” life.
• Mrs. Kendall is an actress---unique in her station in Victorian society.
• Treves gives Mrs. Kendall direction. He tells her how to behave with Merrick.
• Mrs. Kendall’s social visit is an illusion.
• Manners and behavior are illusions.
• Merrick has become a minor celebrity thanks to the stories in the paper.
• Mrs. Kendall knows the best society and plans to introduce Merrick.
• Mrs. Kendall and Treves want to teach Merrick how to behave in society. “ I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.” 35
• Merrick is the toast of London society by 1886.
• Merrick knows duchesses, countesses, and even Princess Alexandra.
• Merrick calls the duchess “your grace.”
• I am very pleased to have made your acquaintance. Repeated. A saying nothing more.
• Merrick gets gifts from friends.
• Lord John is an acquaintance of Merrick’s.
• Lord John teases that Merrick will be a “piccadilly exquisite” with his new walking stick.
• Merrick is visited by her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra.
• The Princess calls Treves a “credit to England and Christendom.”
• Merricks gifts are props to make him feel more like regular people.
• Lord John has rank and a title but is a despicable person---a swindler.
• Merrick ponders if he needs a woman to be a man. Wife. Mistress. Like “normal” men. Can’t you just smell the irony?
• Mrs. Kendal says artists are a special breed---they express their lives through their works.
• Merrick has never seen a naked lady.
• Merrick has never had sex.
• Ironically, neither Treves nor The Bishop can give Merrick any advice on women. Kendal must do it.
• Kendal says (and finally means it) I am extremely pleased to make your acquaintance...
• Treves is shocked and appalled by Mrs. Kendal’s nudity. The suggestion of sex devastates him.
• Treves insists that Mrs. Kendal should be ashamed of her indecent behavior. 50
• Ross says Merrick is a whore with better clientele. 51
• Merrick calls his friends the “cream” of society.
• Merrick calls them his friends but Ross calls that into question.
• Ross and Merrick wonder if “having” a woman is the definition of what makes a man.
• Treves tells Merrick his and Kendal’s behavior was not proper.
• Treves tells Merrick there are standards they must abide by. 55
• Rules are for the common good.
• Treves and Merrick debate standards, rules, and morals. 56
• Standards. 57
• Treves is now the personal surgeon to the Prince of Wales.
• In the dream the doctors studies a normal good man---perfect for study.
• Normal head.
• Normal behavior.
• Normal.
• In the dream Treves is labeled normal and conditioned and neutered by society.
• In the dream normal cripples empathy.
• In the dream normal is the affliction.
• In the dream normal is a worldwide epidemic. 62
• Merrick has brought the hospital good favor. 63
• As Merrick has been indoctrinated to normal his condition has worsened.
• Treves has been knighted.
• Corsets are the fashion and all women wear them and they deform and harm their bodies.
• Poor women of 21 look fifty.
• Middle class people drink too much and overeat to the detriment of their health.
• The upper class people are distant, detached, and cold.
• England wants to die.

Society

The Victorian era was a time of contradictions, many that cut to the heart of the play. Outwardly, there was a carefully cultivated appearance of dignity and restraint in society but that was all an illusion. The reality was that the world was a far cry from buttoned up prudery and elegant manners. The overcrowded cities were teeming with homeless people, prostitution, and social injustice. There was a rigid class structure that worked against the poor and middle class and most people who were in a position to make a difference had been conditioned to accept this all as the normal routine---the “respectable” way for the world to work.

The central objective in the play is to bring Merrick into society and to give him a normal life. First, Treves, “the father” teaches the presumably simple Merrick about home and how “rules make us happy”--- highlighting how effectively and insidiously children are indoctrinated into society and to a uniform way of thinking. He is telling the “child” Merrick to behave the way [I behave] and you shall be rewarded. Next, Treves brings in a mother figure, Mrs. Kendal, and she teaches Merrick manners and etiquette. As she leaves after their first meeting she takes Merrick’s hand and sets the example“ I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Merrick.” This is worth noting because everything that Mrs. Kendal does is a lie. She practices every aspect of her exchange with Merrick in advance---different versions of how to deliver her lines. She is an actress and it is all an act. This alludes to the utter hypocrisy of Victorian society. It is not a coincidence that every upper crust Victorian who meets John Merrick later in the play says goodbye the same way, “ I am very please to make your acquaintance, Mr. Merrick.” It is an impression of a real connection. Like Mrs. Kendal, they are all acting, imitating human connection.

Mrs. Kendal is quite a different creature from the other Victorians in the play, though. It is likely due to her wedged-in spot in society---she is neither working class nor upper class. She is an actress---a working class woman with the appearance of a lady. Later in the play, as Mrs. Kendal spends time with Merrick, she gradually forms a strong and true regard for him. After Merrick tells her that he has never seen a naked woman and hints with a charming lack of subtlety that he’d like to see her naked, she unbuttons the top of her dress and shows herself to him. It is the only moment in the play when anything real happens to John Merrick. It is one of the most honest moments in the play. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Merrick,” she says and she finally means it. 

When Treves walks in and sees Mrs. Kendal exposing herself to Merrick his buttoned up Victorian sensibilities and moral outrage comes to the surface. He shames Mrs. Kendal for being indecent, but the truth in that moment is that for Treves the illusion of Father, Mother, and Child has now been destroyed. Mrs. Kendall is not a mother figure and John Merrick is a twenty five year old man---not a child. Treves sees everything in a different light. Suddenly, he begins to question the way he has treated his patient and this launches us into the next major conflict in the play. Treves realizes that his own limited and conditioned view of the world, one thrust on him by a very structured and flawed society---one that, in turn, he has thrust onto Merrick--- has caused him to do harm to his patient. From this realization comes an eventual breakdown---a realization that he is living a lie and that he and the rest of the civilized world is as damaged and deformed on the inside as John Merrick is on the outside.

Or less: Treves wants to indoctrinate Merrick into the good and right way of civilized life, but through the course of the play he realizes that his way of life is not good and right and my be hurting his patient.

Society is examined through two different lenses in the play.  At first we see Merrick in the sideshow, a lower class operation moving in seedier social circles. Here Merrick is a filthy, miserable creature forced to make a living as a  carnival freak. Merrick has no control over any aspect of his life---he is cared for like an animal would be cared for. He is not a person, but a commodity. When his body becomes too deformed, society deems him “indecent” and he is no longer an asset so his manager abandons him. John Merrick is then brought to London Hospital under the patronage of Dr. Treves, a surgeon, teacher, and a gentleman. By Christmas of that year, Merrick has gone from the lowest tier of society to the highest. He is visited by all the best people in Victorian society---even members of the royal family. He begins to interact with the upper crust and tries to make his way in this world. The play shows us that the change in station has not necessarily been an improvement, though. Although Merrick is now expected to behave and obey the rules of society he is not allowed to actually live as a member of society.  As before, he has little or no control over his life and is still, in effect, an attraction---he is still defined by his deformity. Dr. Treves uses him to get published in medical journals to get more fame. Bishop How speaks of him from the pulpit for pious reasons. Gomm presents Merrick to the public as a charity case and raises money for the hospital. None of the aristocrats who visit Merrick actually form a friendship with him---they simply want a piece of him. Underneath the very thin veneer of manners, rules, and routine is a world every bit as damaging as the world of the filthy sideshow. By the end of the play, the weight of this new life that Dr. Treve’s has introduced to him systematically destroys Merrick with ignorance, exploitation and carelessness.

Or less: Both the upper classes and lower classes are despicable, exploitative, and conditioned to be unaware of their condition.

Religion

• Merrick prays to Jesus for mercy. 14
• Miss Sandwich is a deeply spiritual woman, a missionary nurse.
• Miss Sandwich calls on the Lord in a christian manner.
• Treves refers to the “sisters” at the hospital. Nuns?
• Miss Sandwich exclaims “God in Heaven”---in not such a christian way
• Bishop How takes and interest in Merrick.
• Merrick knows much of the Bible by heart. Psalms and Job are mentioned as they would be.
• Merrick believes Christ will save him.
• Bishop How promises to speak of Merrick from the pulpit on Sunday.
• Church of England---changed to suit politics and society.
• Darwin vs. God. Religion vs. Science.
• How says that Merrick is a christian in the rough, implying he needs education.
• Bishop How is glad Merrick is in the hands of Treves, “a good christian”.
• How refers to Englishmen doing missionary work in Africa for the sake of God.
• Bishop believes Merrick is religious and devout.
• Bishop How went to seminary.
• Merrick asks Treves if he believes in heaven and Treves doesn’t answer. 55
• Merrick says he believes in heaven. 57
• Merrick wonders if Treves doesn’t believe then why does he follow the social rules?
• Gomm asks Bishop How if he is still “beavering away for Christ”. 63
• The Bishop has offered to confirm Merrick. 64
• Treves speech about garden on 66 leads us to believe he thinks religion shapes us into obedient little pawns. 66

Religion

Religion was very important in Victorian England. The Victorians treated The Bible as literal truth and the foundation of their moral behavior. Thus, the Anglican Church demanded, among other things, obedience to God, submissiveness, and resignation--- with the goal of making people more malleable to the will of the church. The Church catered to the one percent, the aristocracy, and cared little about the needs of the lower classes. They appeared to be largely interested in political and economic control and was an ingrained part of every facet of Victorian government and society. It was widely taught that if everyone followed the rules of the church---sexual restraint, intolerance of crime, and a strict moral code of conduct--- then a good life was their reward. This was all a lie, though, an illusion created to control the masses. Religion, like almost everything else in Victorian life was virtually the opposite of what it appeared to be---not a benevolent and spiritual entity, but a greedy and powerful political organization bent on controlling the way people lived.

The most direct reference to religion in the play comes in the form of Bishop Walsham How. Bishop How meets Merrick soon after he comes to London Hospital and declares him a “Christian in the rough” and insists that he be allowed to visit Merrick in the hospital weekly. Bishop How sees the education of John Merrick as his Christian duty, certainly, but Bishop How’s interest is motivated by both goodness and selfishness. He takes delight in his ability to shape John Merrick and congratulates himself on his imagined success. Later in the play, Bishop How makes note of Merrick’s devout and honest nature and quickly reckons they are kindred spirits. “We are alike,” he says. The Bishop’s presence never feels completely motivated by a selfless need to help Merrick. He even confesses to using Merrick as a way to puff himself up. “I think I will speak of him from the pulpit this week!” This is simply another way of selling Merrick.

Up until the mid-eighteen hundreds, science and religion meshed pretty well in England. Early quasi-scientific publications by people like William Paley supported God’s place in the field of natural science. In 1859 with the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, that all changed. In the play, the tension between the church and the scientific community is played out primarily in the relationship between Bishop How and Carr Gomm. There is a thinly veiled hostility present in most of their exchanges. Gomm takes pleasure in reminding Bishop How of God’s part in Merrick’s suffering, and Bishop How readily replies, asking Gomm and Treves how science will achieve salvation for Merrick.

Merrick’s relationship to religion in the play is not entirely dependent on Bishop How. John Merrick appears to be a devout Christian, a true believer---he tells Treves on page 57 that he believes in heaven and prays that God will save him. Although he allows himself to be ministered to and to some degree used as a poster child by Bishop How, Merrick’s real connection to the divine comes in the form of the model he begins constructing of St. Phillip’s Church. Science has failed to save (or even treat) him and the flawed and politically motivated church has failed him as well, so Merrick sets out to build his own salvation. He begins by sketching what he can see from his window. On page 38 Merrick says “ It is not stone and steel and glass; it is an imitation of grace flying up and up from the mud.” This model is John Merrick’s soul and in building it he is revealing his own perfection and place in the afterlife.

Or less: Bishop How is an agent of the church and is part of a flawed system seeking to label and control Merrick. Merrick’s innocence and own honest faith is the true spiritual element in the play.

Frederick Treves is the model of a Victorian gentleman. He is handsome, successful, and follows the rules set forth by The Church. He believes himself to be a caring, Christian man, the epitome of Victorian correctness. Bishop How makes a comment on page 20, saying how happy he is that Merrick is in the hands of a good Christian. If Treves is indeed a good Christian at the beginning of the play, he loses faith by the end. As the world works on Merrick and he slowly deteriorates, Treves loses his patience with the Church and the seemingly hollow promises of salvation made to Merrick. On page 55, Merrick asks Treves if he believes in God and Treves can only discuss medicine. Treves has seen into the hypocrisy of the Church and of society and is desperately trying to save Merrick through science. In the same scene he is working late to find some sort of reliable anesthesia, presumably so that he might operate on Merrick without killing him. By the end of the play, around page 64, Treves is openly critical of Bishop How.

“His [Merrick’s] heart may give out before he gets up off his bloody knees with that bloody man!”

Even Gomm is taken aback by Treves’s change of heart here. This moment of anger and faltering belief is one that most clearly shows the scope of the change that Dr.Treves makes from the start of the play.

Or less: Merrick helps Treves to see that the church is a corrupt organization. The realization leaves him unmoored and lost.

Money

• Treves has a good job.
• Treves has just purchased a house on Wimpole Street.
• Whitechapel and the area surrounding the hospital is a poor area.
• Merrick makes a living by displaying himself as a freak in a sideshow.
• Ross sells looks at Merrick for a Tuppence. Needs a lot of customers to make a living.
• Tuppence is two pennies.
• Merrick is given to Treves to study for five bob a day.
• Five bob is 25 cents.
• Ross is Merrick’s Manager, Handler, Pimp.
• Merrick has saved forty-eight pounds. Two shillings. Nine pence. Since joining Ross. 9
• Forty-eight pounds. Two shillings. Nine pence. About $80.
• Merrick has become so deformed that society finds him indecent. He can’t make money.
• Ross robs Merrick and keeps his savings.
• Merrick is penniless when he is sent back to London.
• Merrick grew up in the workhouse.
• A workhouse was a prison like welfare home for paupers. Normal children would have been apprenticed to journeymen at age 12 and put into the workforce. Merrick would not have this option.
• Gomm has written to the Times and gotten donation to support Merrick. 20
• The London has enough money donated to keep Merrick for life. 21
• The Porter has lost his job for sneaking in to look at Merrick.
• The Porter has been sacked!
• Merrick worries that The Porter’s children may end up in a workhouse.
• Gomm has used Merrick to bring money into the hospital. 40
• Broken contracts. 42
• Lord John hasn’t properly invested money he’s gotten from the hospital and has lost it.
• Lord John has rank but apparently not a lot of his own money. 43
• Broken contract. 44
• Treves tells himself “this is a hospital, not a marketplace.” 44
• Ross wants to go back into business with Merrick.
• Ross tells Merrick he is working for free.
• Ross asks fro 10% and then drops down to 5%.
• Merrick is valuable to the hospital. 59
• Merrick has brought good repute and money to the hospital. 63
• Poor people are sick and old before their time.

Money

In The Elephant Man money is an important factor. During the late eighteen hundreds over eighty percent of the population were members of the working class. The remaining twenty percent were either part of the aristocracy or paupers in the workhouse. Money is a motivating factor for nearly every character in the play.

At the top of the play, Ross needs Merrick in order make a living and Merrick needs Ross in order to survive. Merrick is the only attraction in Ross’s stable of freaks and his only source of income. Without Ross, Merrick would have no way to earn money. Ross works in a poor area of town charging two pennies for a look at Merrick---so the work is hard and the stakes are high for Ross and Merrick in their daily business. If Ross doesn’t take in enough customers then neither he nor Merrick will eat that day. When Merrick is deemed indecent by a concerned citizen, Ross tries to take Merrick on tour as a freak in Europe---a morally “freer” part of the world. Because of the severity of Merrick’s deformity, however, he eventually becomes a liability and Ross abandons him, robbing Merrick of all the money that he had saved while in his employ. Merrick is left penniless with little hope of survival.

Once Merrick is settled in London Hospital money remains a factor. The hospital is not equipped to handle “incurables” and Gomm asks for money from the public to house and care for Merrick. More money than Gomm could have imagined comes in to the hospital and Merrick is set for life. Later, Lord John, a gentleman and businessman takes a loan from Merrick’s hospital account to invest. It is implied that he does not invest the money and simply gambles it away. Ross, Lord John, and even Gomm are distracted by the need for money---it transcends moral obligation and rank in the world of the Elephant Man.