The Importance of Change in The Elephant Man Joseph Campbell once said that when, “we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness" (Campbell). This quote perfectly describes the positive transformation one can undergo, if only one is willing to try. There are ultimately only two outcomes that a character can have: either he changes, and changes his surroundings as well, or he does not and his life continues on as is, static. Due to the possibility of a continued static existence or dynamic change, filmmakers and writers incorporate static and dynamic characters in their works. In the film, The Elephant Man, David Lynch uses static and dynamic characters …show more content…
A drunken Mr. Bytes locks Merrick in the monkey cage, showing that he is an animal and is to be treated as one. If Mr. Bytes had been a more educated character, he would have also been open to new ideas. As a positive result of this, he would have helped play a part in stopping the senseless abuse towards Merrick. Similar to Mr. Bytes, the janitor at the hospital, an uneducated, static character, also abuses Merrick during his stay at the hospital. Throughout Merricks’ stay, the janitor takes advantage of the Elephant man many times. From bringing one singular girl up to his room to leading large groups from the bar to his window, the janitors behavior and attitude about the Elephant Man do not change. The janitor is stuck in his ways and there is, “nothing that can change [his] belief” (Petrovic). Due to his lack of education, the janitor cannot form any new opinions on Merrick. Going forward, he will always view Merrick as the hideous creature that can get him a few laughs, as well as a few bucks. Because he is so incredibly closed-minded towards Merrick, the viewer can deduce that the janitor has a very small view of the world and will continue to in his future endeavors. Unlike Mr. Bytes and the janitor, Doctor Frederick Treves is an educated individual, and therefore, he is open to new ways of thinking. He is considered to be a dynamic character because he, “does undergo an important change in the course of the story” (Baker). In the beginning of the film, the
Not surprisingly, elephants are known for being more emotional and empathetic animals than the rest. According the three articles, “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, “Elephants Know When They Need a Helping Trunk in a Cooperative Task”, and “Elephants Console Each Other” elephants understand when they need each other’s assistance. All two authors describe the studies of elephant behavior differently, but with a similar purpose.
As the Battle of Britain rages on in England, young Nick Freestone is sent to Burma to live with his Dad. After a few days in Burma, the Japanese invade the country. Nick’s Dad is sent of to a prisoner of war camp, while Nick becomes a slave to the Japanese on his fathers plantation. But Nick has “an ace up his sleeve” that the Japs don’t know about. It is the tunnels throughout the plantation. Will Nick fight back, or will he escape.
Leonard Mead is portrayed as an easy going man who simply enjoys his nighttime strolls. However, on this particular evening he gets in trouble. Unlike the characters in other stories, Mead does not change his views and instead stays true to his nature even at the consequence of getting in
In Mr. Morgan's situation, he may be one of those individuals who does not know which type of creatures there are because they have yet to be published for everyone to know about. Therefore, when Mr. Morgan went to the museum to show the ant fourteen fifteen inches long to Lieberman, the government man, Fitzgerald, and Hopper, the United States senator, there were traces of sadness on their faces while looking at the unknown creature that Mr. Morgan discovered. After that moment, the three men in the room started to question Mr. Morgan about this incident that occurred and asked, 'Would you mind telling us why you killed it, Mr. Morgan - What is the name of Morgan? leaving him to answer and ask himself, "Why?" as he does not understand the situation he is in and has continued to be asked about the creature and why he killed it with vital deep questions connecting a deep meaning with each question and details by the government and senators. Mr. Morgan shows a side of himself, defensive and protected, that he never shows to anyone, displaying it to defend himself from the accusation being created and avoid consequences after only learning the facts and details of the alien ant creature, and that follows his awareness of his
Human beings have full control over their identities after they have received knowledge and have become shaped from external stimuli. These stimuli include the teaching process of humans which comes through tradition, schooling, and the actions of other humans and the influence of the organisms around them. Andrew Solomon, through “Son,” was able to use his experience of growing up and labeling himself as a gay dyslexic to show how his environment and knowledge had shaped his identity and how it was viewed by others with different identities. In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert was able to explain how the other organisms or humans are able to form new identities for elephants over time by shaping them a new environment and having the elephants process it. In “Mind’s Eye,” Oliver Sacks had different case studies of blindness from different people and was able to show how each one experienced their blindness help shape and express their individual identities. The stimuli that becomes processed by a person in the situations, accounts, and studies of these works assist in the role of explaining the formulation of an identity.
Description: August is Marlena’s husband and the head animal trainer. He is alternately charming and brutal, both to the humans and animals aboard the Benzini Brothers train. Later in the book, it is explained that he is a paranoid schizophrenic.
When it comes to Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and Fall by Colin McAdam, there are obvious similarities between the main characters. In Water for Elephants, we have Jacob and August, two men who are both in love with a girl named Marlena. In Fall, there is Noel and Julius, two boys who are both in love with a girl named Fall. As for the setting however, there is nothing to compare as in Water for Elephants, it is set at a circus in the 1930’s, whereas Fall is a modern story set in Ottawa. In addition to this difference, we can only see Jacob’s perspective (although we get to see his perspective from two different ages which is similar to Fall), but in Fall, we get the perspective of Julius, in his present teens and Noel from the future as an adult.
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If you’re not paying attention, the mind can be a tricky labyrinth. The less you know about it, the more inexplicable and frightening it becomes. For example, why do seemingly benign elephants wreak havoc upon villages? In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert explores the aberrant nature of these elephants and correlates them to their traumatizing upbringing, deprived of community and kinship. The biochemistry of the human mind, analyzed in “Love2.0” by Barbara Frederickson, serves as a worthy addendum to Siebert’s conjecture. “Love2.0” explains that the brain, hormones, and nerves work in unison to build emotional fortitude, stimulate oneself, and express positivity resonance. Siebert’s ideas of elephant culture and trans-species psyche can put Frederickson’s theory of emotions into practice. The absence of certain hormones within elephants, provided their fragmented community, can explain their volatile outbreaks. Alternatively, the reinstitution of human parental roles into elephant culture can help reconstruct their broken emotional states of elephants and rebuild their resilience; this healing process can also extend to humans.
The Elephant Man, directed by David Lynch, is a biographical portrayal of John Merrick based on The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences written by Dr. Frederick Treves and Ashley Montagu’s The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity. It is important to note that John Merrick was in fact named Joseph Merrick, a fact that the film seems to ignore. The film’s narrative is mainly concerned with the relationship between Treves (Anthony Hopkins) and Merrick (John Hurt). As such, the film follows a narrative thread begging with Treves rescuing Merrick from the freak show and his abusive holder and bringing him to a hospital where he is cared for until he eventually decides to commit suicide in the film’s finale.
and disrupting the little bit of peace that they have. So in that instant he
In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell retold an occasion where he was struggling to come to a final decision of whether to shoot the elephant or not. With his final decision, the elephant finally lay dying in front of thousands of people. He said that he was forced to shoot it because the Burmese people were expecting him to do that. In addition, he also explained that he had to do it “to avoid looking like a fool” in front of the crowd (14). At first glance, one would think that it makes sense for him to kill the elephant to save his face, but that was not the case. He effectively uses this incident to demonstrate the “real nature of imperialism” (3), whereas the elephant represents the British Empire.
Sleep is a short story set in Japan from Haruki Murakami anthology in his “The Elephant Vanishes” collection. Author has written many short stories about a disenchanted character walking through life without much of a reason to be there. I hardly went to sleep after reading that story because this story contains so many possible interpretations based on ones perceptions and beliefs. In this story, the woman fails to find a life for herself instead the leeching society is sucking her life and making her dead inside. During the sleepless nights, she finds out an opportunity for her to break away from her daily routine and creates a life of her own: a life without sleep, a life with unimaginable freedom.
The three short stories we read, The Elephant in the Village of Blind, 20/20, and The Cathedral, all have many common themes with the movie The Elephant man. What intrigues me the most is the hidden underlining meaning each and every story carries. There are three prominent themes I would like to discuss, the figurative and the literal blindness of the characters in the works, enlightenment, and the freedom the characters experience throughout each individual piece. The themes also go hand in hand because one cannot learn a lesson without achieving enlightenment, and cannot free themselves if there is no blinding barrier.
In the short story, The Elephant in the Village of the Blind, there are a group of blind villagers that come across a conflict amongst themselves. The villagers are being introduced to an elephant for the first time in their lives. In curiosity, they all feel different parts of the elephant, observing the different textures and body parts. As they discuss their different views and experiences from touching the elephant their personal ideas created conflicts. As they disagree, it creates an interesting representation of human interaction. In this story, the conflicts that arise between the villagers represent the small bubble of human observation and subjectivity, and how much of human interaction is about competing to be correct in our beliefs because ego and self worth drive how we interact with each other.