The Man Who Laughs
Encyclopedia
The Man Who Laughs is a novel
by Victor Hugo
, originally published in April 1869 under the French title L'Homme qui rit. Also published under the title By Order of the King. Although among Hugo's most obscure works, it was adapted into a popular 1928 film
, directed by Paul Leni
and starring Conrad Veidt
, Mary Philbin
and Olga Baclanova
.
, having been exiled from his native France
because of the controversial political content of his previous novels. Hugo's working title for this book was On the King's Command, but a friend suggested The Man Who Laughs.
who dresses in bearskins and calls himself Ursus (Latin
for "bear"). His only companion is a large domesticated wolf, whom Ursus has named Homo (Latin for “man”, in a pun over the Hobbesian saying "homo homini lupus
"). Ursus lives in a caravan, which he conveys to holiday fairs and markets throughout southern England, where he sells folk remedies.
The action moves to an English sea coast, on the night of January 29, 1690. A group of wanderers, their identities left unrevealed to the reader, are urgently loading a ship for departure. A boy, ten years old, is among their company, but they leave him behind and cast off.
The desperate boy, barefoot and starving, wanders through a snowstorm and reaches a gibbet
, where he finds the corpse of a hanged criminal. The dead man is wearing shoes: utterly worthless to him now, yet precious to this boy. In the meantime, the wanderers' ship sinks after a long struggle with the sea in the English Channel
. After walking some more, the boy finds a ragged woman, frozen to death. He is about to move onward when he hears a sound within the woman's garments: He discovers an infant girl, barely alive, clutching the woman's breast. Hugo's narrative describes a single drop of frozen milk, resembling a pearl, suspended from the dead woman's nipple.
Although the boy's survival seems unlikely, he now takes possession of the infant in an attempt to keep her alive. The girl's eyes are sightless and clouded, and he understands that she is blind. In the snowstorm, he encounters an isolated caravan, the domicile of Ursus.
The action shifts forward 15 years, to England during the reign of Queen Anne. Duchess Josiana, a spoiled and jaded peeress (and illegitimate daughter of King James II), is bored by the dull routine of court. Her lover, David Dirry-Moir, the illegitimate son of a proscribed baron, tells the duchess that the only cure for her boredom is "Gwynplaine", although he does not divulge who or what this Gwynplaine might be.
Ursus is now 15 years older. The wolf Homo is still alive too, although the narration admits that his fur is greyer. Gwynplaine is the abandoned boy, now 25 years old and matured to well-figured manhood. In a flashback, during the first encounter between Ursus and Gwynplaine, the boy is clutching the nearly-dead infant, and Ursus is outraged that the boy appears to be laughing. When the boy insists that he is not laughing, Ursus takes another look, and is horrified. The boy's face has been mutilated into a clown's mask
, his mouth carved into a perpetual grin. The boy tells Ursus that his name is Gwynplaine; this is the only name he has ever known.
The foundling girl, now sixteen years old, has been christened Dea (Latin for "goddess"). Dea is blind but beautiful and utterly virtuous. She is also in love with Gwynplaine, as she is able to witness his kindly nature without seeing his hideous face. When Dea attempts to "see" Gwynplaine by passing her sightless fingers across his face, she assumes that he must always be happy because he is perpetually smiling. They fall in love.
Ursus and his two surrogate children earn a bare living in the fairs and carnivals of southern England. Everywhere they travel, Gwynplaine keeps the lower half of his face concealed. He is now the principal wage-earner of their retinue; in each town they visit, Gwynplaine gives a stage performance; the chief feature of this performance is that the crowds are invariably provoked to laughter when Gwynplaine reveals his grotesque face.
At one point, Ursus and Gwynplaine are readying for a performance when Ursus directs Gwynplaine's attention to a man who strides purposefully past their fairgrounds, dressed in ceremonial garments and bearing an elaborate wooden staff. Ursus explains that this man is the Wapentake, a servant of the Crown. ("Wapentake" is an Old English word meaning "weapon-touch".) Whomever the Wapentake touches with his staff has been summoned by the monarch and must go to wherever the Wapentake leads, upon pain of death.
Josiana attends one of Gwynplaine's performances, and is sensually aroused by the combination of his virile grace and his facial deformity. Gwynplaine, too, is aroused by Josiana's physical beauty and haughty demeanor. Suddenly, the Wapentake arrives at the caravan and touches Gwynplaine with his staff, compelling the disfigured man to follow him to the court of Queen Anne. Gwynplaine is ushered to a dungeon in London
, where a physician named Hardquannone is being tortured to death. Hardquannone recognizes the deformed Gwynplaine, and identifies him as the boy whose abduction and disfigurement Hardquannone arranged twenty-three years earlier.
In the year 1682, in the reign of James II
, one of the king's enemies was Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, Marquis of Corleone and a baron
in the House of Lords
, who had remained faithful to the English republic and had emigrated to Switzerland. Upon the baron's death, the king arranged the abduction of his two-year-old son and legitimate heir: Fermain, heir to his estates. The King sold Fermain to a band of wanderers called "the Comprachicos
". David Dirry-Moir is the illegitimate son of Lord Linnaeus, but now that Fermain is known to be alive, the heritage once promised by the King to David on the condition of his future marriage to Josiana will instead belong to Fermain.
The word "Comprachicos" is Hugo's invention, based on the Spanish
for "child-buyers". They make their living by mutilating and disfiguring children, who are then forced to beg for alms, or who are exhibited as carnival freaks. On the King's command, the two-year-old Fermain is sold to them and disfigured.
It becomes clear that, after renaming Fermain Gwynplaine, the Comprachicos kept him in their possession until they abandoned him eight years later in 1690, on the night when he found Dea. Their ship was lost in the storm at sea, with all hands, but, in their repentance before death, they wrote out a signed confession and cast this adrift in a sealed flask, which now has belatedly come to the attention of Queen Anne.
Dea is saddened by Gwynplaine's protracted absence. Ursus and his band are falsely told that Gwynplaine is now dead. Dea has always been frail, but now she withers away even more. The authorities condemn them to exile for illegally using a wolf in their shows.
Gwynplaine accidentally meets Josiana, having been brought into her palace by her confidant, the intriguer Barkilphedro. At first she nearly seduces him, perversely excited by his deformity. However, she then receives a letter containing the Queen's order to marry him (as a replacement for David and the legitimate Lord Clancharie) and therefore violently rejects him as a lover, while accepting him as her (formal) husband.
Gwynplaine is now formally instated as Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Marquis of Corleone. In a grotesque scene, he is dressed in the elaborate robes and ceremonial wig of investiture, and commanded to take his seat in the House of Lords. But, when the deformed Gwynplaine addresses his peers with a fiery speech against the gross inequality of the age, the other lords are provoked to laughter by Gwynplaine's clownish features. After the end of the session, David defends him and challenges a dozen Lords to a duel, but then he also challenges Gwynplaine to a duel for having chastised David's mother for having become the mistress of Charles II after having been the lover of his own father, Lord Linnaeus.
Gwynplaine renounces his peerage and returns to the caravan of Ursus, and to the only family he has ever known. At first he cannot find them and nearly commits suicide out of grief. Then he manages to find them and board their ship bound for the continent in the last minute. Dea is delighted that Gwynplaine has returned to her. She reveals her passion to Gwynplaine, and then she abruptly dies. Gwynplaine then walks, as though in a trance to the edge of the ship, speaking to Dea, and with the reflection of a distant light in his eyes, though the sky is starless. He throws himself into the water, and is thus reunited with Dea in death. When Ursus, who has fainted in Dea's last moments, comes to his senses, Gwynplaine has vanished, and Homo is staring mournfully over the ship's rail, howling into the sea from which Gwynplaine will not return.
In the movie "The Black Dahlia" (2006), "The Man who laughs" is a movie co-produced by a relative of the supposed killer, who also used the movie's set to stage a pornographic movie featuring the victim, Elizabeth Short, thereby jumbling the book, the original movie, the porno, and real life in a murderous mixture.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, originally published in April 1869 under the French title L'Homme qui rit. Also published under the title By Order of the King. Although among Hugo's most obscure works, it was adapted into a popular 1928 film
The Man Who Laughs (1928 film)
The Man Who Laughs is an American silent film directed by the German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni. The film is an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel of the same name and stars Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine and Mary Philbin as the blind Dea...
, directed by Paul Leni
Paul Leni
Paul Leni born Paul Josef Levi was a German filmmaker and a key figure in German Expressionist filmmaking, making Backstairs and Waxworks in Germany, and The Cat and the Canary , The Chinese Parrot , The Man Who Laughs , and The Last Warning in...
and starring Conrad Veidt
Conrad Veidt
Conrad Veidt was a German actor best remembered for his roles in films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , The Man Who Laughs , The Thief of Bagdad and Casablanca...
, Mary Philbin
Mary Philbin
Mary Philbin was a notable film actress of the silent film era. Philbin is probably best remembered for playing the roles of Christine Daaé in the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera opposite screen legend Lon Chaney and Dea in The Man Who Laughs...
and Olga Baclanova
Olga Baclanova
Olga Vladimirovna Baclanova, or Baklanova, was a Russian-born actress, who achieved prominence during the silent film era. She was billed as the Russian Tigress and remains most noted by modern audiences for portraying the leading lady in Tod Browning's unique horror movie Freaks , which features...
.
Background
Hugo wrote The Man Who Laughs, or the Laughing Man, over a period of fifteen months while he was living in the Channel IslandsChannel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...
, having been exiled from his native France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
because of the controversial political content of his previous novels. Hugo's working title for this book was On the King's Command, but a friend suggested The Man Who Laughs.
Plot summary
The first major character whom the reader is introduced to is a mountebankCharlatan
A charlatan is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception....
who dresses in bearskins and calls himself Ursus (Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
for "bear"). His only companion is a large domesticated wolf, whom Ursus has named Homo (Latin for “man”, in a pun over the Hobbesian saying "homo homini lupus
Homo homini lupus
Homo homini lupus est is a Latin phrase meaning "man is a wolf to [his fellow] man." First attested in Plautus' Asinaria , the phrase is sometimes translated as "man is man's wolf", which can be interpreted to mean that man preys upon man...
"). Ursus lives in a caravan, which he conveys to holiday fairs and markets throughout southern England, where he sells folk remedies.
The action moves to an English sea coast, on the night of January 29, 1690. A group of wanderers, their identities left unrevealed to the reader, are urgently loading a ship for departure. A boy, ten years old, is among their company, but they leave him behind and cast off.
The desperate boy, barefoot and starving, wanders through a snowstorm and reaches a gibbet
Gibbet
A gibbet is a gallows-type structure from which the dead bodies of executed criminals were hung on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. In earlier times, up to the late 17th century, live gibbeting also took place, in which the criminal was placed alive in a metal cage...
, where he finds the corpse of a hanged criminal. The dead man is wearing shoes: utterly worthless to him now, yet precious to this boy. In the meantime, the wanderers' ship sinks after a long struggle with the sea in the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
. After walking some more, the boy finds a ragged woman, frozen to death. He is about to move onward when he hears a sound within the woman's garments: He discovers an infant girl, barely alive, clutching the woman's breast. Hugo's narrative describes a single drop of frozen milk, resembling a pearl, suspended from the dead woman's nipple.
Although the boy's survival seems unlikely, he now takes possession of the infant in an attempt to keep her alive. The girl's eyes are sightless and clouded, and he understands that she is blind. In the snowstorm, he encounters an isolated caravan, the domicile of Ursus.
The action shifts forward 15 years, to England during the reign of Queen Anne. Duchess Josiana, a spoiled and jaded peeress (and illegitimate daughter of King James II), is bored by the dull routine of court. Her lover, David Dirry-Moir, the illegitimate son of a proscribed baron, tells the duchess that the only cure for her boredom is "Gwynplaine", although he does not divulge who or what this Gwynplaine might be.
Ursus is now 15 years older. The wolf Homo is still alive too, although the narration admits that his fur is greyer. Gwynplaine is the abandoned boy, now 25 years old and matured to well-figured manhood. In a flashback, during the first encounter between Ursus and Gwynplaine, the boy is clutching the nearly-dead infant, and Ursus is outraged that the boy appears to be laughing. When the boy insists that he is not laughing, Ursus takes another look, and is horrified. The boy's face has been mutilated into a clown's mask
Glasgow smile
A Glasgow smile refers to the wound that results from slashing a person's face from the edges of the mouth to the ears. The cut, which is usually made with a utility knife or a piece of broken glass, leaves a scar that makes the victim appear to be smiling broadly...
, his mouth carved into a perpetual grin. The boy tells Ursus that his name is Gwynplaine; this is the only name he has ever known.
The foundling girl, now sixteen years old, has been christened Dea (Latin for "goddess"). Dea is blind but beautiful and utterly virtuous. She is also in love with Gwynplaine, as she is able to witness his kindly nature without seeing his hideous face. When Dea attempts to "see" Gwynplaine by passing her sightless fingers across his face, she assumes that he must always be happy because he is perpetually smiling. They fall in love.
Ursus and his two surrogate children earn a bare living in the fairs and carnivals of southern England. Everywhere they travel, Gwynplaine keeps the lower half of his face concealed. He is now the principal wage-earner of their retinue; in each town they visit, Gwynplaine gives a stage performance; the chief feature of this performance is that the crowds are invariably provoked to laughter when Gwynplaine reveals his grotesque face.
At one point, Ursus and Gwynplaine are readying for a performance when Ursus directs Gwynplaine's attention to a man who strides purposefully past their fairgrounds, dressed in ceremonial garments and bearing an elaborate wooden staff. Ursus explains that this man is the Wapentake, a servant of the Crown. ("Wapentake" is an Old English word meaning "weapon-touch".) Whomever the Wapentake touches with his staff has been summoned by the monarch and must go to wherever the Wapentake leads, upon pain of death.
Josiana attends one of Gwynplaine's performances, and is sensually aroused by the combination of his virile grace and his facial deformity. Gwynplaine, too, is aroused by Josiana's physical beauty and haughty demeanor. Suddenly, the Wapentake arrives at the caravan and touches Gwynplaine with his staff, compelling the disfigured man to follow him to the court of Queen Anne. Gwynplaine is ushered to a dungeon in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where a physician named Hardquannone is being tortured to death. Hardquannone recognizes the deformed Gwynplaine, and identifies him as the boy whose abduction and disfigurement Hardquannone arranged twenty-three years earlier.
In the year 1682, in the reign of James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
, one of the king's enemies was Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, Marquis of Corleone and a baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, who had remained faithful to the English republic and had emigrated to Switzerland. Upon the baron's death, the king arranged the abduction of his two-year-old son and legitimate heir: Fermain, heir to his estates. The King sold Fermain to a band of wanderers called "the Comprachicos
Comprachicos
Comprachicos is a compound Spanish neologism meaning "child-buyers," which was coined by Victor Hugo in his novel The Man Who Laughs...
". David Dirry-Moir is the illegitimate son of Lord Linnaeus, but now that Fermain is known to be alive, the heritage once promised by the King to David on the condition of his future marriage to Josiana will instead belong to Fermain.
The word "Comprachicos" is Hugo's invention, based on the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
for "child-buyers". They make their living by mutilating and disfiguring children, who are then forced to beg for alms, or who are exhibited as carnival freaks. On the King's command, the two-year-old Fermain is sold to them and disfigured.
It becomes clear that, after renaming Fermain Gwynplaine, the Comprachicos kept him in their possession until they abandoned him eight years later in 1690, on the night when he found Dea. Their ship was lost in the storm at sea, with all hands, but, in their repentance before death, they wrote out a signed confession and cast this adrift in a sealed flask, which now has belatedly come to the attention of Queen Anne.
Dea is saddened by Gwynplaine's protracted absence. Ursus and his band are falsely told that Gwynplaine is now dead. Dea has always been frail, but now she withers away even more. The authorities condemn them to exile for illegally using a wolf in their shows.
Gwynplaine accidentally meets Josiana, having been brought into her palace by her confidant, the intriguer Barkilphedro. At first she nearly seduces him, perversely excited by his deformity. However, she then receives a letter containing the Queen's order to marry him (as a replacement for David and the legitimate Lord Clancharie) and therefore violently rejects him as a lover, while accepting him as her (formal) husband.
Gwynplaine is now formally instated as Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Marquis of Corleone. In a grotesque scene, he is dressed in the elaborate robes and ceremonial wig of investiture, and commanded to take his seat in the House of Lords. But, when the deformed Gwynplaine addresses his peers with a fiery speech against the gross inequality of the age, the other lords are provoked to laughter by Gwynplaine's clownish features. After the end of the session, David defends him and challenges a dozen Lords to a duel, but then he also challenges Gwynplaine to a duel for having chastised David's mother for having become the mistress of Charles II after having been the lover of his own father, Lord Linnaeus.
Gwynplaine renounces his peerage and returns to the caravan of Ursus, and to the only family he has ever known. At first he cannot find them and nearly commits suicide out of grief. Then he manages to find them and board their ship bound for the continent in the last minute. Dea is delighted that Gwynplaine has returned to her. She reveals her passion to Gwynplaine, and then she abruptly dies. Gwynplaine then walks, as though in a trance to the edge of the ship, speaking to Dea, and with the reflection of a distant light in his eyes, though the sky is starless. He throws himself into the water, and is thus reunited with Dea in death. When Ursus, who has fainted in Dea's last moments, comes to his senses, Gwynplaine has vanished, and Homo is staring mournfully over the ship's rail, howling into the sea from which Gwynplaine will not return.
Theatre
- Clair de Lune, a stage play written by Blanche Oelrichs under her male pseudonym Michael Strange, which ran for 64 performances on BroadwayBroadway theatreBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
from April to June 1921. Oelrichs/Strange made some extremely arbitrary changes to the story, such as altering the protagonist's name to “Gwymplane”. The play features some very contrived and stilted dialogue, and would probably never have been produced if not for the fact that Oelrichs's husband at this time was the famed actor John BarrymoreJohn BarrymoreJohn Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
, who agreed to play Gwymplane and persuaded his sister Ethel BarrymoreEthel BarrymoreEthel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...
to portray Queen Anne. The ill-starred drama was dismissed as a vanity production, indulged by Barrymore purely to give his wife some credibility as playwright “Michael Strange”. The review by theatre critic James WhittakerJames WhittakerJames Whittaker was the second leader of the Shakers. He became leader following the death of Mother Ann Lee.-References:...
of the Chicago TribuneChicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
was headlined “For the Love of Mike!” - In 2005, The Stolen Chair Theatre Company recreated the story as a "Silent film for the stage." This adaptation pulled equally from Hugo's novel, the 1927 Hollywood Silent film, and from the creative minds of Stolen Chair. Stolen Chair's collectively created adaptation was staged as a live silent film, with stylized movement, original musical accompaniment, and projected intertitles. Gwynplaine was brought to life by Jon Campbell and was joined by Jennifer Wren, Alexia Vernon, Dennis Wit and Cameron J. Oro. It played in NY to critical acclaim and has been published in the book, Playing with Cannons.
- In 2006 the original story was adapted into musical by Alexandr Tumencev (composer) and Tatyana Ziryanova (Russian lyrics) and entitled 'Man Who Laughs' ('Человек, который смеётся'). This musical adaptation is performed by the Theatre of musical "Seventh Morning" starting from November, 6.
Comics
- In May 1950, the Gilberton publishing company produced a comic-book adaptation of The Man Who Laughs as part of their prestigious Classics IllustratedClassics IllustratedClassics Illustrated is a comic book series featuring adaptations of literary classics such as Moby Dick, Hamlet, and The Iliad. Created by Albert Kanter, the series began publication in 1941 and finished its first run in 1971, producing 169 issues. Following the series' demise, various companies...
series. This adaptation featured artwork by Alex A. Blum, much of it closely resembling the 1928 film (including the anachronistic Ferris wheel). The character of Gwynplaine is drawn as a handsome young man, quite normal except for two prominent creases at the sides of his mouth. As this comic bookComic bookA comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
was intended for juvenile readers, there may have been an intentional editorial decision to minimise the appearance of Gwynplaine's disfigurement. A revised Classics Illustrated edition, with a more faithful script by Al Sundel, and a painted cover and new interior art by Norman Nodel, was issued in the spring of 1962. Nodel's artwork showed a Gwynplaine far more disfigured than the character's appearance in either the 1928 film or the 1950 Classics edition. - A second comic book version was produced by artist Fernando de Felipe, published by S. I. ARTISTS and republished by Heavy Metal Magazine in 1994. This adaptation was intended for a mature audience and places more emphasis on the horrific elements of the story. De Felipe has simplified and taken some liberties with Hugo's storyline. His rendering emphasizes the grotesque in Hugo and excludes the elements of the sublime that are equally important in the original.
Criticism
Hugo's Romantic novel "The Man Who Laughs" places its narrative in 17th century England, where the relationships between the bourgeoisie and aristocracy are complicated by continual distancing from the lower class. Hugo's protagonist, Gwynplaine (a physically transgressive figure, something of a monster) transgresses these societal spheres by being reinstated from the lower class into the aristocracy—a movement which enabled Hugo to critique construction of social identity based upon class status. Stallybrass and White's "The sewer, the Gaze and the Contaminating Touch" addresses several of the class theories regarding narrative figures transgressing class boundaries—Gwynplaine specifically can be seen to be the supreme embodiment of Stallybrass and White's "rat" analysis, meaning that Hugo's protagonist is in essence a sliding signifier.Allusions and references from other works
- In 1869, while living in Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New YorkBuffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, Mark TwainMark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
published a parody of L'Homme qui Rit in the Buffalo Express newspaper. The parody attempted to offer parallels between Gwynplaine and Andrew JohnsonAndrew JohnsonAndrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
, the scandal-plagued President of the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at that time. The parody was not a success, and is of minor interest only because of its author's later prominence. - In 1940, comic book artist Bob KaneBob KaneBob Kane was an American comic book artist and writer, credited as the creator of the DC Comics superhero Batman...
and writer Bill FingerBill FingerWilliam "Bill" Finger was an American comic strip and comic book writer best known as the uncredited co-creator, with Bob Kane, of the DC Comics character Batman, as well as the co-architect of the series' development...
used Gwynplaine's lanky physique and grotesque grin as the visual inspiration for the JokerJoker (comics)The Joker is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain published by DC Comics. He is the archenemy of Batman, having been directly responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman's life, including the paralysis of Barbara Gordon and the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin...
, BatmanBatmanBatman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
's archenemy. There the similarity ends, however; Gwynplaine is an embittered hero, while the Joker is a psychopathic criminal.
In the 1970s, Bob Kane acknowledged the inspiration for the Joker, and it was later explicitly referenced in the graphic novelGraphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
, Batman: The Man Who LaughsBatman: The Man Who LaughsBatman: The Man Who Laughs is a one-shot prestige format comic book by Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke, released in February 2005, and intended as a successor to Batman: Year One....
. Comic book artist Brian BollandBrian BollandBrian Bolland is a British comics artist, known for his meticulous, detailed linework and eye-catching compositions. Best known in the UK as one of the definitive Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology 2000 AD, he spearheaded the 'British Invasion' of the American comics industry, and in...
said that watching The Man Who Laughs was one of his inspirations for drawing the graphic novel Batman: The Killing JokeBatman: The Killing JokeBatman: The Killing Joke is an influential one-shot superhero graphic novel written by Alan Moore and drawn by Brian Bolland. First published by DC Comics in 1988, it has remained in print since then, and has also been reprinted as part of the trade paperback DC Universe: The Stories of Alan...
(1988). In the episode "Wild Cards" of the Justice League animated series (2003), The Joker infiltrated a TV station by using the alias "Gwynplaine Entertainment." - In a 2011 issue of Batman and RobinBatman and Robin (comic book)Batman and Robin is an American comic book ongoing series, created by Grant Morrison and featuring Batman and Robin. The debut of the series followed the events of "Batman R.I.P.", Final Crisis, and "Battle for the Cowl" in which the original Batman, Bruce Wayne, apparently died at the hands of DC...
, writer David HineDavid Hine-Biography:Hine has been working in comics since the early 1980s. For Crisis he drew the series Sticky Fingers in 1989, and wrote and drew a number of short pieces in 1990 and 1991...
introduced a deformed French supervillain named the Man Who Laughs. His backstory states that his father, a fan of classic art and literature, carved a smile onto his face as an intentional homage to Hugo's novel. - Gwynplaine's physical appearance may have inspired "Sardonicus", a story by Ray RussellRay RussellRay Russell was an American writer of short stories, novels, and screenplays. In 1991 he received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement....
published in PlayboyPlayboyPlayboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
in 1961. This gothic horror tale describes a man who has experienced a shock so terrifying that he undergoes a medical condition called Risus sardonicusRisus sardonicusRisus sardonicus is a highly characteristic, abnormal, sustained spasm of the facial muscles that appears to produce grinning.The name of the condition derives from the appearance of raised eyebrows and an open "grin" - which can appear malevolent to the lay observer - displayed by those suffering...
, in which his face is permanently paralyzed into an exaggerated grin. Russell's story was filmed that same year as Mr. SardonicusMr. SardonicusMr. Sardonicus is a 1961 horror film produced and directed by William Castle. It tells the story of Sardonicus, a man whose face becomes frozen in a horrifying grin while robbing his father's grave to obtain a winning lottery ticket. He tries to force a doctor to cure him, but eventually dies when...
, a low-budget horror film by William CastleWilliam CastleWilliam Castle was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Castle was known for directing films with many gimmicks which were ambitiously promoted, despite being reasonably low budget B-movies....
, featuring one of the gimmicks for which that producer was famous: halting the projection of the movie a few minutes before it ended, ostensibly so that the audience could vote on whether Sardonicus would live or die. Allegedly, the projectionist had two different endings available, and would screen the one reflecting the audience's verdict. In reality, however, only one ending was ever filmed or shown, with Sardonicus starving to death, his handicap preventing him from eating. - The novelist and essayist Ayn RandAyn RandAyn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
adapted Hugo's term “Comprachicos” for her own purposes in a noted essay, published in The Objectivist in 1970. Rand used the term “Comprachicos” to designate various forces in society which — either through well-meaning ignorance or outright malice — distort and deform children's souls and minds in an attempt to force them into social conformity. She considered The Man Who Laughs to be Hugo's best novel. - Pinball, a 1982 novel credited to Jerzy KosinskiJerzy KosinskiJerzy Kosiński , born Józef Lewinkopf, was an award-winning Polish American novelist, and two-time President of the American Chapter of P.E.N.He was known for various novels, among them The Painted Bird and Being There...
, features a female character named Andrea Gwynplaine. Journalist and author F. Gwynplaine MacIntyreF. Gwynplaine MacIntyreFergus Gwynplaine MacIntyre was a journalist, novelist, poet and illustrator, who lived in New York City and said he had lived in Scotland and Wales. MacIntyre's writings include the science-fiction novel The Woman Between the Worlds and his anthology of verse and humor pieces MacIntyre's...
made an unverified claim to have ghost-written portions of Pinball and inserted the name “Gwynplaine” into the text of Pinball as a clue to his participation. - In James EllroyJames EllroyLee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a so-called "telegraphic" prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black...
's book The Black DahliaThe Black Dahlia (novel)The Black Dahlia is a neo-noir crime novel by American author James Ellroy, taking inspiration from the true story of the murder of Elizabeth Short. It is widely considered to be the book that elevated Ellroy out of typical genre fiction status, and with which he started to garner critical...
, the mutilation murder of Elizabeth Short is partially inspired by a painting of Gwynplaine. The painting ends up being one of the major clues in solving the murder.
In the movie "The Black Dahlia" (2006), "The Man who laughs" is a movie co-produced by a relative of the supposed killer, who also used the movie's set to stage a pornographic movie featuring the victim, Elizabeth Short, thereby jumbling the book, the original movie, the porno, and real life in a murderous mixture.
- A short story by the name of The Laughing ManThe Laughing Man (Salinger)"The Laughing Man" is a short story by J. D. Salinger, published originally in The New Yorker on March 19, 1949; and also in Salinger’s short story collection Nine Stories...
is featured in J.D. Salinger's Nine StoriesNine Stories (Salinger)Nine Stories is a collection of short stories by American fiction writer J. D. Salinger released in May 1953. It includes two of his most famous short stories, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "For Esmé – with Love and Squalor". Nine Stories (1953) is a collection of short stories by American...
. It appears to be influenced by The Man Who Laughs, featuring an individual facially disfigured in his childhood by criminals who have kidnapped him. - In the 2008 movie The Dark KnightThe Dark Knight (film)The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
the character The JokerJoker (comics)The Joker is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain published by DC Comics. He is the archenemy of Batman, having been directly responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman's life, including the paralysis of Barbara Gordon and the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin...
appears to take a more direct influence physically from Gwynplaine, as his permanent grin appears to be caused by a mutilation to his face. - In H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor MoreauThe Island of Doctor MoreauThe Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells. It is told from the point of view of a man named Edward Prendick who is shipwrecked, rescued by a passing boat, and then left at the ship's destination by the crew along with the ship's cargo of exotic animals...
, Moreau refers to L'Homme qui Rit when explaining the nature of his experiments to the protagonist. - In the new Rob ZombieRob ZombieRob Zombie is an American musician, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie and has been nominated three times as a solo artist for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.Zombie has also established a career as a film director, creating the...
album, Hellbilly Deluxe 2Hellbilly Deluxe 2Hellbilly Deluxe 2: Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls and the Systematic Dehumanization of Cool is the fourth solo studio album by former White Zombie frontman Rob Zombie. The album is a companion to Rob Zombie's debut album Hellbilly Deluxe...
, the last song is titled "The Man Who Laughs" and is based on the story of the same name.