Physical deformities have been looked
at as grotesque for a long time. While things such as “freak shows” and
discrimination have ended, there still remain some mentionings of deformities
associated with somethings negative in pop culture. Once in awhile a movie will
come out with a witch suffering from hunchback, or maybe there’ll be the evil
giant, a much more menacing figure than Gulliver to the Lilliputians. One
medium that makes strong use of physical deformities is literature. In
literature, physical deformities are commonly associated with negative things,
such as moral twistedness or periods of darkness. While physical deformities
are used to evoke sympathy at times, the negative representation of them or
their association with the negative is commonly used as its own literary
device, utilized to characterize or to create a setting that’s dark and twisted.
One
use of physical deformities in literature is characterization. Some of the most
famous authors have used it in order to create a grotesque figure that instills
fear, or sometimes to represent a warped mindset. In his essay “Of Deformity,”
Sir Francis Bacon talks about the negative aspect of deformed people. He says,
“DEFORMED persons are commonly even with nature; for as nature hath done ill by
them, so do they by nature; being for the most part (as the Scripture saith)
void of natural affection” (Bacon). This basically means that because nature
has so cruelly plagued deformed people with their deformity, they hold a
natural desire to become even with nature through their hate and lack of morals
or empathy. This idea is expressed in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Mr. Hyde is described as there being “something wrong with his appearance;
something displeasing, something downright detestable.... He must be deformed
somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity” (Stevenson 9). Furthermore,
in an account of his repulsion at the sight of Mr. Hyde, the character Dr.
Lanyon writes that “I set it down to some idiosyncratic, personal distaste, and
merely wondered at the acuteness of the symptoms; but I have since had reason
to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man” (Stevenson 76).
The first quote implies that even though the man was not outwardly deformed,
there was something wrong about him that warranted a deformity. No, instead he
just brings with him an uneasy feeling, since his body is small but he appears
to be “like some damned Juggernaut” (Stevenson 5). All of this equates to mean that
when there is someone that gives off such a dark, displeasing feeling, that man
would be best with a deformity, since deformities are rather dark and
displeasing. The second quote states that the aversion to such a detestable man
was not caused by merely personal prejudice, but instead by the nature of man
to avoid the deformed. These quotes in and of themselves are negative
representations of Mr. Hyde. He seems to radiate the feeling of deformity, the
feeling that things are not as they should be, and people avoid him because of
that feeling. But that’s not the only reason that he is avoided. As expressed
in the quote by Sir Francis Bacon mentioned above, those with deformities have
an incredible lack of emotion. Near the beginning of the novella, Mr. Hyde
tramples over a girl without caring much for it. He leaves her there, not
caring as she screams on the ground and a large crowd gathers around. During
this entire scene, he is described as having “a kind of black, sneering
coolness... like Satan” (Stevenson 6). He shows no empathy for the being that
he just crushed underfoot. When he is reproached and threatened with a scandal,
he calmly walks into his own home and returns with a check to pay for the
damages. There is no sign given by him to show that he has a conscience that
truly cares for what he’s done. Instead, he lacks the emotions to care and the
morality to realize he’s done something wrong. His feeling of deformity is
expressed both in how he makes people around him feel and how his mindset works.
While lacking a visible deformity, there is something off about him. There’s
something similar to a deformity. And this thing similar to a deformity is used
to characterize him as twisted. The negative representation of his closeness to
deformity serves the purpose of letting the reader know that this character is
twisted and broken, both in how he makes others feel and how he thinks. There
is nothing normal about him. There is only his deformed aura.
Another major use of
deformities is found in the creation of setting. It can be used to give a sense
of the collective thoughts of a group found in a certain area, or possibly to
create an endless feeling of darkness. As referred to previously, this
application is a part of Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels. While not necessarily a giant in reality,
Gulliver is close to about six feet tall. He becomes shipwrecked on the nation
of Lilliput, which is inhabited by ridiculously small people. To them, he seems
to be the personification of evil, someone that suffers from gigantism, a
condition which causes people to grow excessively so that they’re significantly
taller than the average person. He doesn’t truly suffer from such a malady, but
it’s the entire perception of the Lilliputians that counts. While at first they
feared him, the Lilliputians came to accept him, giving him the name “The
Man-Mountain.” A little later, they give him conditions of his freedom, which
include two of note. They say that he will “be aiding and assisting to our
Workmen, in helping to raise certain great Stones,” and that he’ll be an “Ally
against our Enemies in the Island of Blefuscu...
which is now preparing to invade Us” (Swift 26). Both of these can be
analyzed to show the mindset of the Lilliputians in association to Gulliver’s
apparent plague of gigantism. At first they feared him, both out of his size
and because they had enemies before. They were at war with another nation, and
they feared an imminent invasion by that nation. The giant Gulliver could have
been an enemy of some sort meant to stomp them out. Their initial reluctance to
accept his deformity has ties to their fear. However, once they were finally
accepting of him, they made it necessary for him to help them in their work.
Again, this could be tied to their preparations for war, but it could also tie
into their mindset of improval. Throughout history many societies have
undergone extensive repairs of structures and the process of making other
buildings. In ancient Egypt they built the pyramids, which required endless
hours of slave labor to move a small amount of large blocks. With the arrival
of Gulliver and his giant body, the Lilliputian process of construction could
move forward, which would undoubtedly make them on par with great architectural
societies such as Egypt, Athens, and Rome. The negative portrayal of Gulliver
(although it was negative from only the Lilliputian point of view) created the
image that there was a great deal of uneasiness in the society. They feared war
and had big dreams, but the growing forces of the enemy loomed just over the
border, and they would be unable to continue without accepting a “Man-Mountain”
such as Gulliver. Although he appeared to be someone that could destroy them
with no problem, they had to take him in to fight their enemies and improve
their homeland. His association with the ultimately negativity (evil) was
nothing compared to what he could do for the Lilliputians. They needed to get
past the collective fear that could be found in much of their society, or they
would be destroyed by themselves, the invaders from Blefuscu, and (as they thought) Gulliver. While Gulliver was
associated with the deformed, he was still a valuable ally, someone that could
put the Lilliputians at ease by serving as their driving force.
Aside from reflecting
the mindset of a group of people, the use of deformities can also be applied to
give the work an endless feeling of darkness. This is employed in the novel The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes. The
novel carries a dark tone with it at just about every part. One reason for this
is that it’s riddled with deformities. Although not depicted negatively at any
point, the character The Somnambulist is a hulking man that’s unable to be
punctured. Another character rivals the size of The Somnambulist and is just as
invulnerable. The characters represented negatively are Mina and the Human Fly.
The Human Fly makes its first appearance early on, being described as having
“the form, the size, the shape of a man, but there seemed no trace of humanity
about it... its sallow skin was covered in a multitude of vile grey scales”
(Barnes 10). (He presumably suffers from Ichthyosis vulgaris, but a very severe
case that “entails the build up of scales everywhere” (Gibson).) The Human Fly
can also scale buildings as easily as a lizard can. Everything about it comes
off as primal. When the protagonist, Edward Moon, goes to visit it at the freak
show that it lives at, the Fly lets out a “fierce and animal” snarl (Barnes
80). This recoils the detective with Moon, but Moon remains completely
unphased. When the Fly kills itself by leaping from a church steeple, the
detective also makes a remark about having swatted the fly. Moon also finds
this joke to be extremely distasteful. The Human Fly is characterized in line
with Bacon’s ideas, with his deformity bringing him to a place where he feels
little morality and is essentially one of the evil figures in the plot. The
division between how Moon and the detective viewed the Fly helps create a
rather dark feeling. Moon isn’t taken aback at all, since he’s used to seeing
the deformed and the broken (more about this soon). However, the detective has
never laid eyes on such a thing. He’s remained in his disillusioned world of
solving petty crimes, never experiencing the wide variety of things that Moon
has. Moon has always resided in the world of darkness, while the detective has
only encountered what he thinks is dark, just to be swallowed up by something
darker than black. This can also help to further develop the divide between the
two different worlds of the people. There are those that see things such as the
Fly everyday, whether they see such deformities or if they see other similar
things. Then there are people like the detective, never coming into contact
with bone-rattling uneasiness. Either way, the citizens of the dark town are
affected very differently by those associated with the negative. As for Mina,
she’s a part of Edward Moon’s guilty pleasure. He takes solace in visiting a
brothel of people plagued with deformities, and Mina is one of the women that
works there. She has both a beard as well as “a grisly pink piece of flesh
which bore a ghastly, visceral resemblance to the severed arm of an infant”
(Barnes 45). For the sake of relating her character to Bacon’s ideas, it could
be said that she lacks morals in that she works in a brothel, which could be
seen as a way of revolting against nature. While she herself isn’t too
negatively portrayed, the entirety of the brothel is criticized by those that
don’t share Moon’s passions. It’s a thing that’s looked down upon, something
not understood by the normal everyday man or woman. It’s the dark, unknown area
that nobody dares tread in except for those like Moon. Both the Human Fly and
Mina are associated with the negative. The Human Fly is one of the antagonists,
and he’s also a criminal. Mina is a part of the shunned brothel in town. The
association between these characters and the negative aspects only gain more
strength from their deformities. The Human Fly is essentially buzzing around
from place to place, helping to move forward the plot of the antagonists while
also being someone that the common man gawks at in fear. Mina, on the other
hand, is there as a deformed girl in a brothel, trying her best to make a
living but struggling a bit because of how much the brothel is looked down on.
Both of these characters struggle in the void, while the “normal” people go
about their lives, ignorant of the struggles of the deformed.
In
literature, physical deformities are commonly portrayed in a negative light as
a means of characterization as well as a way to give information on a time
period and the people of that time. In the case of Robert Louis Stevenson’s
novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde, Hyde’s appearance gives off the negative feeling usually
associated with a deformity, which is used to characterize him as someone both
physically and morally twisted. In Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver appears to the Lilliputians as a
giant, who they fear at first and eventually allow to coexist with them under
the conditions that he works for them, which helps to show their fear of
outside forces as well as their willingness to use foreign help for the sake of
fighting other outside forces. Finally, in Jonathan Barne’s novel The Somnambulist, both the Human Fly and
Mina are used to create a dark world, as well as to show how other characters
differ in their opinions regarding those with deformities. Overall, cases such
as these and in other novels show that while a deformity may be portrayed as
negative by the author or seen as negative by a character in a work, it is all
for the sake of developing the story further and giving the reader some new
form of insight.
Works
Cited
Bacon, Sir Francis. "Of Deformity." authorama.com. N.p., 03 2012. Web. 5 Dec 2012. <http://www.authorama.com/essays-of-francis-bacon-44.html>.
Barnes, Jonathan. The Somnambulist.
New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Print.
Gibson, C. Michael. "Ichthyosis vulgaris." wikidoc.org. Wikipedia, 09 2012. Web. 5 Dec 2012. <http://wikidoc.org/index.php/Ichthyosis_vulgaris>.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. London: Longmans, Green & co.,
1886. eBook.
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