The Elephant Man is a famous play by Bernard Pomerance. Based on a true story, it tells a tale about a person who was born with several serious deformities, making him look extremely ugly. In one of the scenes, a store manager named Ross, who is displaying the elephant man, technically named Merrick, to an audience, making money. A doctor called Treve is interested in Merrick and his deformities, so he borrows Merrick for examination. But it was decided that Merrick shouldn’t go back to the display because of morality issues. The story then goes on to talk about what happened afterwards. In this critical review of The Elephant Man’s excerpt (from the start of scene 2 to possibly the end of scene 3), we’ll be discussing the main characters in this excerpt and analyzing personalities and especially human nature expressed by the characters. We’ll be analyzing three different characters: Ross, Treves, and the crowd in general from the excerpt.
Ross embodies our dark side of human nature, greed for money, mistreating others, and taking advantage of others. Ross is most likely the antagonist of this excerpt, if not the whole play. Her personality shows us the dark side of our human nature, of how we mistreat and take leverage of others in order to get something, in this case, money. Her greed for money and lack of kindness shows us how too much greed for something can lead us to harm someone else, physically or mentally. In the excerpt, Ross puts Merrick on display with the intention of showing off his rare deformities to gather crowds and make money. She chose willingly and without any remorse to humiliate such a poor creature in front of everyone just so she would get financial benefit. Her greed for money surpasses all prospects of sympathy and pity for Merrick. She only cares about taking advantage of Merrick and not kindness on Merrick himself. If we let our dark side of human nature take over, we will lose all aspects of care and goodwill.
The audience embodies our negative side of curiosity and the negativity that comes from it. The audience that pays to see Merrick embodies our negative side of curiosity, not over-curiosity per-se, but negative curiosity. The wonder of how bad something can be, pushing the boundaries of the definition “bad”. This negative curiosity can result in negative reactions, triggering feelings of hatred, horror, or disgust, even when the thing in particular doesn’t actually deserve to be reacted in such a way. In the excerpt, the crowds are drawn to see Merrick because of their curiosity, yet after seeing him, they develop emotions like terror and disgust towards such a ghastly creature. Ross knows this trick, and she successfully uses the crowd’s negative curiosity to bait the audience in paying to see Merrick. In this case, the crowd feels petrified by the result of their curiosity, and they also develop negative feelings toward Merrick, even though it is only his looks that are ugly. Negative curiosity can mislead our feelings, resulting only in looking at the bad side of things.
Treves embodies the virtues of true curiosity and kindness. Treves is obviously the protagonist in this excerpt, whose personality is remarkable by contrast to the previously mentioned characters. He represents true, scientific curiosity, questioning not how something is, but why it is that way. This curiosity is the blessed side, the side that will lead to the opening of the mind and obtaining more knowledge. He is also the kinder bit of people in this excerpt, actually caring for something or someone rather than taking advantage of others or mistreating them. In the excerpt, Treves is more interested in Merrick’s scientific condition than in actual looks. He also doesn’t gasp in horror as soon as he meets Merrick. Treves differs from the other audiences in the way that his curiosity is positive, he actually cares for Merrick and his medical conditions. He is not misled by the ads and rumors, instead pouring over scientific reasons. A man of true curiosity and goodwill won’t be misled by surface level things like physical traits.
In conclusion, The Elephant Man is a world renown play about the story of a man born with deformities, and how his life was, based on a true story that actually happened. In this critical review of an excerpt of it, we dive into the personalities of the characters mentioned: Ross, the crowd, and Treves. Ross represents greed for money and mistreating others, humiliating Merrick in front of everyone and treating him like a wild animal when Merrick was actually a poor creature that is supposed to be pitied. She only cares about the money she makes from Merrick, nothing else. The crowds represent negative curiosity, attracted to see Merrick because they wanted to know how ugly someone can truly be. This results in negative feelings of hatred and disgust towards Merrick. Treves, being the protagonist, represents scientific and genuine curiosity, of why Merrick is so medically a mystery. He is also notably kinder than other characters in this excerpt. In the end, The Elephant Man is a truly sophisticated play, and I highly recommend either watching it or reading the script. Even an excerpt can tell so much.
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