When I read the descriptions of Edward Hyde and Frankenstein's creature and how people perceived them, it made me think of the Elephant Man.
The Elephant Man, whose real name is Joseph Merrick, suffered from Proteus syndrome, a disorder that causes an overgrowth of skin, atypical bone development and tumours over most of the body. People called him the elephant man because his skin was grey and he was shaped like an elephant; he had a big head, hands and feet as big as an elephant's foreleg and big lumps of skin all over his body. When he went outside, he had to cover himself up because people were laughing at him or terrified of him. When he was young, his mother died and his father did not want to take care of him, so he had to work in order to survive. He got fired from all his jobs obviously, because his condition made him unable to work. The only job he kept for a while was in a freak show. He was shown to medical doctors in a cage in order to find what was wrong with him, as if he were an animal. In the movie, when he can't take it anymore he says a very famous line: "I am not an elephant! I am not an animal! I am a human being!". In the end, he was given a permanent room in a hospital so he could be taken care of, but all his life he was treated like an animal.
Frankenstein's creature and Mr.Hyde both had similar experiences. They were described as hideous monsters, ugly wretch, horrible vision or in the case of Hyde, small, dwarfish, deformed, misbegotten and ape-like. They got treated like animals and had very strong reactions from people and as a result, they had to hide.
In our society, we automatically assume that people with deformities/disabilities are not intelligent, but in most cases, it is the very opposite. Frankenstein's creature learned to speak, to read and to understand a language all by himself and he also learned how to survive. Joseph Merrick could write, speak very well and read, which was very rare in the poorer classes in the 19th century and he had very high artistic skills. This shows that we have a lot to learn about a person before we can judge but sadly, people base their opinion on first impression and stereotypes. How much longer is that going to be the case?
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| Model of a church he built himself during his spare time. |
I found your post quite interesting. It is very unfortunate that people with deformities are judged immediately without any reason. It's astonishing to see that this man was able to prove all those people wrong by creating and doing everything he did. The world is a cruel place and unfortunately we are judged by our flaws. Hyde and the Creature, like you said, were indeed judged by their deformities and it made them suffer and eventually made them crueler than they ever were.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the both of you! And i found your post quite interesting as well! People in our society in general are always judged based on first appearance. People are underestimated like there is no tomorrow. Deformities do not change a person, they do not make a person any less capable of anything they set their mind too. We blame society for these judgements, but we are society. Doubt these people, but then watch them...
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