As I think and shown in the movie, John Merrick life was full of wretchedness, however, I have no idea about his childhood, his parents and his siblings if he had any siblings or not because no information was provided in the movie but I think he had no siblings or his siblings didn’t want people to know that he is their brother and his parents had passed away so he suffered a lot from his disfiguring physical disability and because of his physical appearance he was used by an evil man, Mr. Bight to perform in the freak shows earning money for his liquor. In addition, he was frequently beaten by Mr. Bight and was kept in a dark and dirty place.
The compassionate doctor was the rescuer of John Merrick from the agony life, who was a major surgeon in the London Hospital as shown in the beginning of the movie on a surgery. When first Dr. Treves saw Merrick he decided to move him to London Hospital and rescue him from the anguish life and all that suffering, so he paid the evil man, Mr. Bight to move him to the hospital. Mr. Treves was trying to make him ready for a meeting with the president of the hospital Mr. Gorm by teaching him how to speak not knowing that John Merrick was a literate person who I think learned how to read and write in his childhood from his parents, which ended up animating him to find the courage back to speak just like a normal person, which really surprised the doctor and Mr. Gorm.
The elephant man was now famous as John Merrick who was backed up with Queen Victoria’s letter to be accepted as a patient in the London Hospital which was delivered and recited by Princess Alexandra, The Princess of Wales, he received many visitors including people form the high class who normally would not even consider being in the same room as someone from the lower class specially someone with physical disability. For example, the most famous British actress Mrs. Kendal befriended him, gifted him the Shakespearean book Romeo and Julius and even kissed his horribly disfigure face.
I think John Merrick had a unique personality he was a delightful man, despite his afflictions and miseries he was able to read and write. Actually he read a part of the Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Julius which fascinated the actress where she start to perform a part of the play together with him in his room in London Hospital and the way John read the play had delighted the actress who then kissed him on the check for his beautiful performance and invited him to one of his plays at the Victorian Theatre where he was warmly welcomed by the actress and all the aristocrats. Also during his stay in the hospital he built a beautiful model of a church that he was seeing from the window of his room. I personally think that John Merrick was a strong man despite all the misery an agony in his life he never give up his hopes and disappointed looking at the picture of the boy sleeping in his bed he tried to accomplishing his dream by sleeping like a normal person so he laid on his back and I think he died because he was not able to breath normally while laying down.