Exploring The Characters In The Elephant Man Through Two Disability Lenses

Abstract The play is eye opening and shows the inhumane treatment Merrick and other disabled individuals must endure because mainstream society finds them to be outside the range of normal. Through the interactions between the characters in the play the audience sees how disability is understood and responded to by the medical community and mainstream society. This research will try to shed light on the text by analyzing it through two different lenses comparing and contrasting the social disability and medical disability models and the concept of staring and its implications.