Elephant Man's deformed condition is inseparable from the recurring maternal gaze in the film, and this deformity is precisely how this gaze inscribes itself, corresponding to how Victorian England, the pinnacle of modern civilization, gazed at the Elephant Man—here , the maternal gaze is transformed into the kind gestures of actresses, queens and others, paradoxically elevating the deformed monsters under the vision of the former enlightenment (the vision of the circus boss) to the sublime "human being". This is also Freud's way of interpreting the mother-child relationship - a relationship in which the mother can enjoy the pleasure of skin-to-skin and the desire of the other without any ethical burden. In contrast, masculinity is always trying to reduce the deformity—either by medical means or by money—and this is the effect of signifierization, which empties its referent and subordinates it to the object The law of ice-cold exchange between. It is also as if the phallus signifier is always trying to cover up its own emptiness, the antagonism and inconsistency of the symbolic structure.
The Elephant Man is this inconsistency. As a ghost that has not been shamed as a "human" by the symbol, it exposes the deformity and antagonism of the symbolic reality itself (this is also the "unprofessional tear of being a doctor" shed by Hopkins. : he was forced to confront the traumatic reality and shed horrific real tears).
Therefore, the dream of "eternal life" at the end of the film refers to the irreducible element in the concrete universality of human beings, the immortal life that is antagonistic to symbolic reality, and he permanently modifies the concept of "human".
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