Themes: Joseph Merrick and Elephant Man Essay

In the short story, Cathedral by Raymond Carver, the word “blind” acquires different meanings. The unnamed narrator is metaphorically blind; he can look at the surface of everything but not see what is inside. Although the narrator can listen to conversations, he cannot understand the deeper emotional context the conversation might hold, compared to Robert, who is visually impaired but can truly listen and understand. It is not until the end of the story that the narrator metaphorically opens his eyes, with assistance from Robert.

Themes and motifs: The book, Water for Elephants, has a symbolic study of human need for love and acceptance. The primary symbols are revealed through unique characters that struggle to feed deep internal desires. Rosie, the elephant, is a big and powerful symbol. More than just being a performing animal, Rosie reflects the desperation of so many

Many people sacrifice their beliefs and values to be accepted in society and to win the societies approval. George Orwell in “Shooting an elephant” and Langston Hughes in “Salvation” deal with the issue of “fitting in” in very different ways.

No matter how open-minded a person may claim to be, everyone makes presumptions on first impressions or rumors. Despite seeing someone for only a split second, people make assumptions about others’ attitude, personality, and character! Usually, people tend to notice things that they feel are grounds to pass judgment upon. The quote “ You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” by Harper Lee is a quote that truly signifies how people should perceive others. Rather than judging someone, people should place themselves in their shoes and try to understand their way of thinking

Throughout the novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison works with many different images of blindness and impaired vision and how it relates to perception. These images prove to be fascinating pieces of symbolism that enhance the themes of impression and vision within the novel. From the beginning of the novel when the narrator is blindfolded during the battle royal to the end where Brother Jack's false eye pops out, images of sight and blindness add to the meaning of many scenes and characters. In many of these situations the characters inability to see outwardly often directly parallels their inability to perceive inwardly what is going on in the world around them. Characters like Homer A. Barbee and Brother Jack believe they are all knowing

In Chaim Potok’s book, The Chosen, blindness is a recurring theme. Although there are some instances of physical blindness, such as Billy in the hospital, most of the situations in this book are of the figurative sense. In these circumstances, the person has good physical vision, however, due to their previous experiences, they are not able to see the true situation.

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.

People who are blind face many different problems in accomplishing everyday activities and becoming an independent individual. Some are able to overcome this issue while others struggle through it in their lives. In “Helen Keller’s Address before the New York Association for the Blind, January 15, 1907” she makes an appeal to the audience that the blind should be helped and made independent so that they can stand up and support themselves. She uses pathos or emotionally packed words, examples and anecdotes and cites from a prominent source to convince her audience that the blind are not helpless, but they are in need of guidance from people who can see in order to live and thrive independently.

“The Elephant in the Village of the Blind” shows us that in life, we frequently attempt to comprehend the world around us by the way we see it. Nevertheless, our understanding is limited by our experiences, knowledge, beliefs, moral systems, education, opinions, influence of others, etc. In this sense, we are metaphorically “blind”, as are the villagers. For this reason, some people in the story saw the animal as “a fringed rope” (line 13) and others as “a cool, smooth stuff” (line 14), which is clear juxtaposition. Moreover, when we are not familiar with something we are trying to define it, before fully understanding it. The clear moral of this parable is that we rarely see the things as they are, we see the things as we are.

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.

When one thinks of being blind, they think of someone who literally can not see, but one can also be blind by lacking perception or awareness. People who have sight and yet are blind is clearly seen in the book, To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story based in the 1930’s when racial issues are heavily present. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and throughout history, people or groups of people have existed who can literally see the world around them, and yet are blind to the truth; but, as seen in the novel, some of these people’s eyes can be opened to the truth either by empathy or experiences.

The story “Cathedral” demonstrates that lack of sight does not necessarily prevent one from perceiving things as they are, or live their life to the fullest. In the story, a middle-age blind man, who is a friend to the narrator’s wife, and used to be her boss at one point, visits the narrator and his wife. The narrator has never interacted with blind people before, and all he knew about blind people was what he had seen on television. Blind people are stereotypically portrayed on television as slow moving, dull people, who never laugh. Based on this perception, the narrator was reluctant to meet the blind man and doubted whether they were going to connect. This is evident when the narrator states, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (Carver 1).

You are being deceived; two things can seem similar, but really, they are very different. What you initially see is not always accurate, this is especially prominent in literature. Though “Dark They Were and Golden Eyed” and “The Last Dog” appear to be similar, because they have similar genes and characters, they have contrasting themes that are developed in vastly different ways.

The Elephant Man, by Bernard Pomerance was about a man, John Merrick, who lived in the Victorian Era with many physical disabilities. When portraying Merrick in the movie adaptation, the actor would have lots of makeup on to match the descriptions of him. In the play's adaptation of this story, the actor would not have any makeup or special effects, but would instead have a natural appearance, and contort their body in ways that portrayed Merrick's physical challenges. Based on the short excerpt read, the movie's version of showcasing John Merrick's appearance through the use of makeup was more effective in staying true to the author's tone. The addition of prosthetic makeup to the body adds to the scientific and mysterious tone, as it was

Another similarity would be the characters in both stories. They are faced with the hard reality as they come to find out they weren't living in