Book Report on The Elephant Man
...ght that he had to call Treves for fear that John would die. Once Mr. Merrick was in the hospital for a while, Mr. Carr-Gomm, who was the chairman of the hospital committee, told Treves that he had to find somewhere else for him to stay. Because he was an incurable he could not allow John to stay in the hospital and take up space. After meeting John in person, Carr-Gomm changed his mind and said they could try to convince the committee to let him stay in the hospital permanently. It took a lot for them to back down and let John stay but finally, after a little visit from the princess, they did. Everything was going great for John Merrick in his new home. He had everyone from the princess to the best actress in London coming to visit him and bringing him gifts. Merrick was actually starting to feel normal and happy for the first time in his life. Until one night his great life was suddenly snatched away from him. Bytes had managed to get in a crowd led by Jim Renshaw, a custodian at the hospital. The group paid Renshaw to go see the elephant man. Bytes managed to slip into the room unnoticed and when everyone left he took John away with him. He was kept in a circus for a while as one of the freaks until one night some friends of his helped him escape. With their help he was able to make it back to London and meet back up with Treves at the hospital. Everything went back to normal although the damage done in the months he was gone could not be fixed. His health was undoubtedly worse. Once he was back only his real friends were aloud to come visit him. All of the high-class people who only came to make themselves look good were kept away. One of these real friends was Mrs. Kendall. She was a woman of the theater and also the best actress in all of London. She had been one of the first to visit Merrick and he favored her about the rest. When Mrs. Kendall came to visit him once he was back she surprised him and told him that she was going to put on a play at the theater and invited him to come. The night they went to see the play was one of the best nights of John’s life. The princess was there and he had his own special place reserved for him. At the end of the play Mrs. Kendall announced to the audience that the night’s production was dedicated to some very special, Mr. John Merrick. Merrick couldn’t believe it. He had never been so happy in his life. That night when they came home and Merrick was left alone he felt as if he was almost normal. The only thing stopping him now was that he couldn’t sleep like normal people. So he lay down just like anyone else would. The pressure from his large head was too much though and as he lay there he couldn’t breath and he died peacefully. This story really touched me. Although I never met John Merrick I feel as if I know him. I also feel great sympathy for him. He was a great man and didn’t deserve to be deformed like he was and go through what he did. It amazes me that no matter what happened to him he felt no hate or even anger toward anyone. This was a really awesome book in my opinion. I didn’t like it at first because I thought it was boring but as a read on it got more interesting as I went along and by the end I loved it. One of my favorite things about the book was the author's writing style. She described the characters so well that it made me feel like I knew them then. She told and showed so much about their personalities. There were a few points I didn’t like about the book though. The first part I didn’t like was that it didn’t tell you a lot of information I would have liked to know. Take his mother for instance. The book talks about her and tells what may have happened to her. It gets you curious about her but then never tells what really happened to her. I also would have liked to know what Mr. Bytes reaction was when he woke up and found that John was gone. I know he was probably furious but it doesn’t say for sure. The last thing that I didn’t like was the ending. I wish he wouldn’t have died but I guess since he died in real life he had to die in the book. On a scale of 1-5 I give the movie about a 3. After reading the book I feel that the movie left out a lot of information. Most of the details they left out seemed to be very key parts in the book. If I hadn’t read the book first I think I would have been somewhat lost watching the movie. It kept moving from one scene to another without really letting you know what was going on. I feel the novel was much better than the film. It was a lot more detailed and interesting. The book really let you know what was going on unlike the movie. I would highly recommend that anyone read the book either before or after you see the movie. There were many different characters in this book. Some of them were good and some were bad. No matter what kind of character they were, they were great. The descriptiveness she used was excellent. There were two that stood out to me the most. The ones that I chose to compare where Dr. Treves and Mr. Bytes. I picked them because it amazed me that two com...