The Elephant Man

Treves is the protagonist of the play, which is based on a memoir by the real Frederick Treves. Treves is a prominent surgeon who is hired as an anatomy lecturer at London Hospital. At the beginning of the play, he is naïve and full of optimism about his new job, shocked at the suggestion that he might one day care so much more about money than the work as to find the paycheck insufficient. Although Bishop How calls Treves a Christian, Treves puts very little stock in religion and sees it as antithetical to science. However, he adheres to a strict set of Victorian rules and morals without questioning them and attempts to pass those on to Merrick, using the nonspecific reasoning that rules make people happy because those rules exist for people’s own good.

At first, Treves sees Merrick as a scientific specimen to be borrowed, studied, and returned, with no thought of intervening in Merrick’s exploitative life. But when random chance leads to Treves being called in to rescue Merrick from a mob, Treves starts to see himself as a savior. Over the course of the play, however, Treves becomes exploitative as well.