Elephant Man

     Enter Treves.  “For God’s sakes.  What is going on here?  What is going on?

Mrs. Kendal:  For a moment, Paradise, Freddie.

Treves:  But-have you no sense of decency?  Woman, dress yourself quickly.  Are you not ashamed?  Do you know what you are?  Don’t you know what is forbidden?”(42 Pomerance)

     The argument, short but sweet, from The Elephant Man between Treves and Mrs. Kendal, is one that shapes the play.  The events leading up to it, and the consequences after leave a lot to consider.  In this exert Treves is not only angry because Mrs. Kendal is doing something deemed inappropriate in this setting, but he is also angry because deep down he believes Merrick should be treated differently as if he is not human.

     Treves enters the room and is not only shocked but also angry, and immediately asks for answers.  In his mind he walked into something that was extremely inappropriate, and unforgivable.  Mrs. Kendal immediately responds with what is on her mind, “Paradise.”

     Mrs. Kendal sees no wrong in what she just did; she saw it as an opportunity to educate an obviously curious Merrick.  He had never been in a situation to see the female body in all its glory, and Mrs. Kendal thought she could help Merrick with this simple, harmless gesture of friendship.

     She began to dress and Treves goes on a rant about having decency and being ashamed, and asks her if she knows what is forbidden.  Treves believes he is defending Merrick’s innocence, while in fact Merrick isn’t a child or mentally incompetent or anything else that Merrick sometime depicts him as, he is a young man.  The argument ends at this point as the light fades out.

     The outcome of this disagreement hurts two people, Merrick and Mrs. Kendal.  These two had become almost like two girlfriends that would talk and talk and they both really seemed to learn something from each other.  Treves doesn’t see it that way for some reason, he see Merrick as something almost non human that should be treated differently and shouldn’t have the same feelings as ‘normal’ people, and he could not be more wrong.  Keeping these two from each other is unjust and though we never hear from Mrs. Kendal again, Merrick definitely suffers.

     This moment in the play most certainly affects Merrick for the rest of the play.  He isn’t as happy, almost sort of seems to give up on life.  He spends the rest of the play just going through the motions.  Treves doesn’t seem to take much notice in the way Merrick has changed even though his disdain is brought the Doctor.  As readers we can see Merrick slowly giving up on everything and eventually passing away. Merrick lost his best friend in this disagreement and never recovers.