Elephant Man and Monstrosity

Elephant Man and Monstrosity

Combining Fears...

"I first saw the light on the 5th of August, 1860, I was born in Lee Street, Wharf Street, Leicester. The deformity which I am now exhibiting was caused by my mother being frightened by an Elephant; my mother was going.. along the street when a procession of Animals were passing by, there was a terrible crush of people to see them, and unfortunately she was pushed under the Elephant's feet, which frightened her very much; this occurring during a time of pregnancy was the cause of my deformity.“

(Merrick’s autobiography)

In what ways does the idea that women’s experiences during pregnancy shape future generations empower women? In what ways does is disempower women?

How does the idea of female curiosity play a role in this moment?

Victorian Preoccupations

Montrous: Manly/Effeminate

• After he was in London hospital, he was kept to his room, secluded, very like the domestic “Angel in the house” of Victorian femininity
• Treves: “gentle, affectionate and loveable creature, as amiable as a happy woman”
• In turning himself into an object of display, Merrick was, in some ways “feminized” but also commodified—a form of prostitution?

1801        Census reveals that women outnumber men by 400,000 (surplus of unmarried women).

1837        William IV dies, succeeded by niece, Princess Victoria Sarah Moore.

1839        Child Custody Act (now possible for a mother to be given custody of her children under seven).

1840       Queen marries her first cousin, Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Judge upholds a man's right to lock up his wife and beat her in moderation.

1843        Association for the Aid of Milliners and Dressmakers founded.

1847        (also 1850) Factory Acts (women and children restricted to 10 1/2 hour day).

1851        Harriet Taylor: "The Enfranchisement of Women." Women's Suffrage Petition presented to the House of Lords.

1857          Matrimonial Causes Act (legally separated wife given right to keep what she earns; man may divorce wife for adultery, whereas wife must prove adultery aggravated by cruelty or desertion).

1861        Prince Albert dies; Queen retires into mourning. George Eliot: Silas Marner. [Charles Dickens: Great Expectations.]

1864        Contagious Diseases Acts also 1866 and 1869 — women living in certain garrison towns liable to be declared prostitutes and forcibly examined for venereal disease).

1869        First women's college at Cambridge founded (Girton College). John Stuart Mill: On the Subjection of Women. (electronic text at Wiretap)

1870        First Married Woman's Property Act. Ladies National Association for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts founded by Josephine Butler.

1918        Voting Act (Enfranchised all men over 21, and all women over 30).

1928         Equal Franchise Act (Equal voting rights for both men and women).

Thank you!

Monstrous: “Civilized”/”Uncivilized”

“Some palm trees in the background suggested a jungle”

1807: Slave Trade Act

1857: Indian Mutiny

1896-1899: Sudan War

1899-1902: Boer War

A “vision of “imperial corpse” “defensiveness, self-doubt, and worries about ‘fitness,’ ‘national efficiency,’ and racial and cultural decadence…characterize the end of the century” (Brantlinger 33)

Monstrous: “Civilized”/”Uncivilized”

"In consequence of my ill luck my life was again made a misery to me, so that I again ran away and went hawking on my own account, but my deformity had grown to such an extent, so that I could not move about the town.. without having a crowd of people gather around me. I then went into the infirmary at Leicester, where I remained for two or three years, when I had to undergo an operation on my face, having three or four ounces of flesh cut away; so thought I, I'll get my living by being exhibited about the country.Knowing Mr. Sam Torr, Gladstone Vaults, Wharf Street, Leicester, went in for Novelties, I wrote to him, he came to see me, and soon arranged matters, recommending me to Mr. Ellis, Bee-hive Inn, Nottingham, from whom I received the greatest kindness and attention. In making my first appearance before the public, who have treated me well -- in fact I may say I am as comfortable now as I was uncomfortable before. I must now bid my kind readers adieu…. '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.""

Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man

1862-1890

Thought to be suffering from Elephantiasis, a disease caused by tropical parasites; more likely Neurofibramatosis or Proteus Syndrome

Workhouse 1880-1884

Human Curiosity 1884-1886

London Hospital 1886-1890

Course description

Monstrous: Man/Animal

Monstrous: Man/Animal

Frederick Treves (surgeon who brought him to London hospital) on the poster advertising him:

“This very crude production depicted a frightful creature that could only have been possible in a nightmare. It was the figure of a man with the characteristics of an elephant. The transfiguration was not far advanced. There was still more of the man than of the beast. This fact—that it was still human—was the most repellant attribute of the creature. There was nothing about it of the pitiableness of the misshapened or the deformed, nothing of the grotesqueness of the freak, but merely the loathing insuation of a man being changed into an animal. Some palm trees in the background suggested a jungle and might have led the imaginative to assume that it was in this wild that the perverted object had roamed”

• Increasing exploration meant encounters with new vistas, species
• Publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species
• Fears of “degeneration” haunted late Victorian England
• HumanAnimal
• “Civilived””Uncivilived”
• “Manly” “Effeminate”

Monstrous Man/ Animal/Language

• Merrick’s language was impeded by his deformities and Treves in particular emphasized this facet (wrote his speech was so slurred “he might have been speaking in Arabic”)
• Philology was born in the nineteenth century and closely linked to evolution
• Used both to show difference (man from animal, “savage” from “civilized”) and similarity

This course examines the "monstrous" in its various Victorian forms: the murderous, the physically disabled, the mentally unstable, the "fallen women," and the evolutionarily left behind. Through a broad range of readings-- popular and "high" novels and novellas, poems ,science writing and periodical essays--we will probe at a range of fears embodied as monstrous to the Victorian mind, particularly those centering around

race, gender, sexuality and species. These readings should give you a sense of not only some of the pressing issues of Victorian England, but also of the variety of writings and styles that flourished in this century.

Monstrous (root: monstrare; “to show”)

Of, relating to, or characteristic of a monster (monster n. 1a); having the appearance or nature of a monster, esp. in being hideous or frightening.

Of (a part of) a person, animal, or plant: abnormally formed; spec. having a gross congenital malformation. Also fig.

This usage increased in British Medical Journals throughout 19th century, peaking 1870-1890 (Durbach 28)

Like or befitting a monster; inhumanly wicked or depraved; atrocious, horrible. In later use freq. hyperbolical

OED