Victor of Aveyron
Encyclopedia
Victor of Aveyron was a feral child
who apparently lived his entire childhood naked and alone in the woods before being found wandering the woods near Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance
, France
, in 1797. He was captured, but soon escaped after being displayed in the town. He was additionally periodically spotted in 1798 and 1799.
However, on January 8, 1800, he emerged from the forests on his own. His age was unknown, but citizens of the village estimated he was about twelve years old. His lack of speech, as well as his food preferences and the numerous scars on his body, indicated he had been in the wild for the majority of his life. While the townspeople received him kindly, it was only a matter of time before word spread and the boy was quickly taken for examination and documentation.
His case was taken up by a young physician, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
, who worked with the boy (whom he named Victor) for five years. Itard was interested in determining what Victor could learn. He devised procedures to teach the boy words and recorded his progress. Based on his work with Victor, Itard broke new ground in the education of the developmentally delayed.
, examined him. He removed the boy's clothing and led him outside into the snow
, where, far from being upset, Victor began to frolic about in the nude
, showing Bonnaterre that he was clearly accustomed to exposure and cold. The local government commissioner, Constans-Saint-Esteve, also observed the boy and wrote there was "something extraordinary in his behavior, which makes him seem close to the state of wild animals". The boy was eventually taken to Rodez, where two men traveled to discover whether or not he was their missing son. Both men had lost their sons during the French Revolution
, but neither claimed the boy as his son. There were other rumors regarding the boy's origins. For example, one rumor insisted the boy was the illegitimate son of a notaire abandoned at a young age because he was mute. Itard believed Victor had "lived in an absolute solitude from his fourth or fifth almost to his twelfth year, which is the age he may have been when he was taken in the Caune woods." That means he presumably lived for seven years in the wilderness.
It was clear that Victor could hear
, but he was taken to the National Institute of the Deaf in Paris for the purpose of being studied by the renowned Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard
. Sicard and other members of the Society of Observers of Man believed that by studying, as well as educating the boy, they would gain the proof they needed for the recently popularized empiricist theory of knowledge. In the context of the Enlightenment, when many were debating what exactly distinguished man from animal, one of the most significant factors was the ability to learn language
. By studying the boy, they would also be able to explain the relationship between man and society.
caused many thinkers, including naturalists and philosophers, to believe human nature was a subject that needed to be redefined and looked at from a completely different angle. Because of the French Revolution
and new developments in science and philosophy, man was looked at as not special, but as characteristic of his place in nature
. It was hoped that by studying the wild boy, this idea would gain support. He became a case study in the Enlightenment
debate about the differences between humans and other animals.
At that time, the scientific category Juvenis averionensis was used, as a special case of the Homo ferus, described by Carl von Linné in Systema Naturae
. Linnaeus and his discoveries, then, forced people to ask the question, what makes us men? Another developing idea that was prevalent during the Enlightenment was the idea of the noble savage
. Some believed a man, existing in the pure state of nature, would be "gentle, innocent, a lover of solitude, ignorant of evil and incapable of causing intentional harm."
Philosophies proposed by the likes of Rousseau, Locke
, and Descartes were evolving around the time when the boy was discovered in France in 1800. These advances in philosophy invariably had an influence on how the boy was looked at, and eventually, how his education would be constructed by Itard.
abroad and internal regulation of deviants back home." The same way in which Europeans viewed the "Other" in colonies and other exotic locations was how the French people saw the Wild Boy of Aveyron. To lack reason and understanding during the Enlightenment was to be uncivilized. The attitudes that Europeans extended toward the Other were paralleled by Victor, as he too was considered "uncivilized" because of his lack of language and therefore, reason. These characteristics defined mankind for Victor's contemporaries.
, a young medical student, effectively adopted Victor into his home and published reports on his progress. Itard believed two things separated humans from animals: empathy
and language. He wanted to civilize Victor with the objectives of teaching him to speak and to communicate human emotion. Victor showed significant early progress in understanding language and reading simple words, but failed to progress beyond a rudimentary level. Itard wrote, "Under these circumstances his ear was not an organ for the appreciation of sounds, their articulations and their combinations; it was nothing but a simple means of self-preservation which warned of the approach of a dangerous animal or the fall of wild fruit."
The only two phrases Victor ever actually learned to spell out were lait (milk
) and Oh, Dieu (Oh, God). It would seem, however, that Itard implemented more contemporary views when he was educating Victor. Rousseau appears to have believed "that natural association is based on reciprocally free and equal respect between people." This notion of how to educate and to teach was something that although did not produce the effects hoped for, did prove to be a step towards new systems of pedagogy
. By attempting to learn about the boy who lived in nature, education could be restructured and characterized.
Itard has been recognized as the founder of "oral education of the deaf; the field of Otolaryngology
; the use of behavior modification with severely impaired children; and special education for the mentally and physically handicapped."
While Victor did not learn to speak the language that Itard tried to teach him, it seems that Victor did make progress in his behavior towards other people. At the Itard home, housekeeper Madame Guérin was setting the table one evening while crying over the loss of her husband. Victor stopped what he was doing and displayed consoling behavior towards her. Itard reported on this progress.
, created a school to educate deaf-mutes. His institution was made into a National Institute in 1790. This new interest and moral obligation towards deaf-mutes inspired Itard to nurture and attempt to teach Victor language. "He had Locke's and Condiallac's theory that we are born with empty heads and that our ideas arise from what we perceive and experience. Having experienced almost nothing of society, the boy remained a savage."
Throughout the years Itard spent working with Victor, he made some gradual progress. Victor understood the meaning of actions and used what Shattuck describes as "action language", which Itard regarded as a kind of primitive form of communication. However, Itard still could not get Victor to speak. He wondered why Victor would choose to remain mute when he had already proved that he was not, in fact, deaf. Victor also did not understand tones of voice. Itard proclaimed "Victor was the mental and psychological equivalent of a born deaf-mute. There would be little point in trying to teach him to speak by the normal means of repeating sounds if he didn't really hear them."
Shattuck critiques Itard's process of education, wondering why he never attempted to teach Victor to use sign language
. Regardless, today there are certain hypotheses that Shattuck applies to Victor. "One is that the Wild Boy, though born normal, developed a serious mental or psychological disturbance before his abandonment. Precocious schizophrenia
, infantile psychosis, autism—a number of technical terms have been applied to his position. Several psychiatrists I have consulted favor this approach. It provides both a motivation for abandonment and an explanation for his partial recovery under Itard's treatment."
Victor died in Paris
in 1828 in the home of Madame Guérin.
's 1970 film L'Enfant sauvage
(marketed in the UK as The Wild Boy and in the US as The Wild Child).
Victor's story was retold through dramatizations in a fourth-season episode of In Search Of..., titled "Wild Children", in 1980.
Victor's story was also dramatized through puppetry in an ensemble theater performance also called The Wild Child by Hand2Mouth Theatre
, a nonprofit theatre group in Portland, Oregon, in 2004.
, and in the title novella of the 2010 collection Wild Child and Other Stories by T. C. Boyle.
has stated she believes Victor displayed the signs of autism
.
In March 2008, following the disclosure that Misha Defonseca
's best-selling book, later turned into film, Survivre Avec les Loups (Survival with Wolves) was a fake, there was a debate in the French media (newspapers, radio and television) concerning the numerous false cases of feral children blindly accredited: although there are numerous books on this subject, almost none of them have been based on archives, the authors using rather dubious second or third-hand, printed information. According to French surgeon Serge Aroles, who has written a general study of feral children based on archives, almost all of these cases are fakes. According to Aroles, Victor of Aveyron is not a genuine feral child: "Don't forget that Truffaut's movie is... a movie!" According to Aroles, the scars on the body of Victor were not the consequences of a wild life in the forests, but rather of physical abuse (a fact the film alludes to with at least one scar).
Feral child
A feral child is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has no experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language...
who apparently lived his entire childhood naked and alone in the woods before being found wandering the woods near Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance
Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance
Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance is a commune in the Aveyron department in southern France.-Population:-References:*...
, 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...
, in 1797. He was captured, but soon escaped after being displayed in the town. He was additionally periodically spotted in 1798 and 1799.
However, on January 8, 1800, he emerged from the forests on his own. His age was unknown, but citizens of the village estimated he was about twelve years old. His lack of speech, as well as his food preferences and the numerous scars on his body, indicated he had been in the wild for the majority of his life. While the townspeople received him kindly, it was only a matter of time before word spread and the boy was quickly taken for examination and documentation.
His case was taken up by a young physician, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard was a French physician born in Provence.Without a university education and working at a bank, he was forced to enter the army during the French Revolution but presented himself as a physician at that time...
, who worked with the boy (whom he named Victor) for five years. Itard was interested in determining what Victor could learn. He devised procedures to teach the boy words and recorded his progress. Based on his work with Victor, Itard broke new ground in the education of the developmentally delayed.
Study
Shortly after Victor was found, a local abbot and biology professor, Pierre Joseph BonnaterrePierre Joseph Bonnaterre
Abbé Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre was a French naturalist who contributed sections on cetaceans, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects to the Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique...
, examined him. He removed the boy's clothing and led him outside into the snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
, where, far from being upset, Victor began to frolic about in the nude
Nudity
Nudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...
, showing Bonnaterre that he was clearly accustomed to exposure and cold. The local government commissioner, Constans-Saint-Esteve, also observed the boy and wrote there was "something extraordinary in his behavior, which makes him seem close to the state of wild animals". The boy was eventually taken to Rodez, where two men traveled to discover whether or not he was their missing son. Both men had lost their sons during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, but neither claimed the boy as his son. There were other rumors regarding the boy's origins. For example, one rumor insisted the boy was the illegitimate son of a notaire abandoned at a young age because he was mute. Itard believed Victor had "lived in an absolute solitude from his fourth or fifth almost to his twelfth year, which is the age he may have been when he was taken in the Caune woods." That means he presumably lived for seven years in the wilderness.
It was clear that Victor could hear
Hearing (sense)
Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through an organ such as the ear. It is one of the traditional five senses...
, but he was taken to the National Institute of the Deaf in Paris for the purpose of being studied by the renowned Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard
Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard
Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard was a French abbé and instructor of the deaf.Born at Le Fousseret, Haute-Garonne, and educated as a priest, Sicard was made principal of a school for the deaf at Bordeaux in 1786, and in 1789, on the death of the Abbé de l'Épée, succeeded him at Paris...
. Sicard and other members of the Society of Observers of Man believed that by studying, as well as educating the boy, they would gain the proof they needed for the recently popularized empiricist theory of knowledge. In the context of the Enlightenment, when many were debating what exactly distinguished man from animal, one of the most significant factors was the ability to learn language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
. By studying the boy, they would also be able to explain the relationship between man and society.
Influence of the Enlightenment
The EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
caused many thinkers, including naturalists and philosophers, to believe human nature was a subject that needed to be redefined and looked at from a completely different angle. Because of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and new developments in science and philosophy, man was looked at as not special, but as characteristic of his place in nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
. It was hoped that by studying the wild boy, this idea would gain support. He became a case study in the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
debate about the differences between humans and other animals.
At that time, the scientific category Juvenis averionensis was used, as a special case of the Homo ferus, described by Carl von Linné in Systema Naturae
Systema Naturae
The book was one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carolus Linnaeus. The first edition was published in 1735...
. Linnaeus and his discoveries, then, forced people to ask the question, what makes us men? Another developing idea that was prevalent during the Enlightenment was the idea of the noble savage
Noble savage
The term noble savage , expresses the concept an idealized indigene, outsider , and refers to the literary stock character of the same...
. Some believed a man, existing in the pure state of nature, would be "gentle, innocent, a lover of solitude, ignorant of evil and incapable of causing intentional harm."
Philosophies proposed by the likes of Rousseau, Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, and Descartes were evolving around the time when the boy was discovered in France in 1800. These advances in philosophy invariably had an influence on how the boy was looked at, and eventually, how his education would be constructed by Itard.
Influence of colonialism
Simpson points out there was a "direct link between the discourse of colonialismColonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
abroad and internal regulation of deviants back home." The same way in which Europeans viewed the "Other" in colonies and other exotic locations was how the French people saw the Wild Boy of Aveyron. To lack reason and understanding during the Enlightenment was to be uncivilized. The attitudes that Europeans extended toward the Other were paralleled by Victor, as he too was considered "uncivilized" because of his lack of language and therefore, reason. These characteristics defined mankind for Victor's contemporaries.
Education
After Sicard became frustrated with the lack of progress made by the boy, he was left to roam the institution by himself, until Itard decided to take the boy into his home to keep reports and monitor his development. However, it was said that even though he had been exposed to society and education, he had made little progress at the Institution under Sicard. Many people questioned his ability to learn because of his initial state, and as Yousef explains, "it is one thing to say that the man of nature is not yet fully human; it is quite another thing to say that the man of nature cannot become fully human."Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
Jean Marc Gaspard ItardJean Marc Gaspard Itard
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard was a French physician born in Provence.Without a university education and working at a bank, he was forced to enter the army during the French Revolution but presented himself as a physician at that time...
, a young medical student, effectively adopted Victor into his home and published reports on his progress. Itard believed two things separated humans from animals: empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
and language. He wanted to civilize Victor with the objectives of teaching him to speak and to communicate human emotion. Victor showed significant early progress in understanding language and reading simple words, but failed to progress beyond a rudimentary level. Itard wrote, "Under these circumstances his ear was not an organ for the appreciation of sounds, their articulations and their combinations; it was nothing but a simple means of self-preservation which warned of the approach of a dangerous animal or the fall of wild fruit."
The only two phrases Victor ever actually learned to spell out were lait (milk
Milk
Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...
) and Oh, Dieu (Oh, God). It would seem, however, that Itard implemented more contemporary views when he was educating Victor. Rousseau appears to have believed "that natural association is based on reciprocally free and equal respect between people." This notion of how to educate and to teach was something that although did not produce the effects hoped for, did prove to be a step towards new systems of pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....
. By attempting to learn about the boy who lived in nature, education could be restructured and characterized.
Itard has been recognized as the founder of "oral education of the deaf; the field of Otolaryngology
Otolaryngology
Otolaryngology or ENT is the branch of medicine and surgery that specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of ear, nose, throat, and head and neck disorders....
; the use of behavior modification with severely impaired children; and special education for the mentally and physically handicapped."
While Victor did not learn to speak the language that Itard tried to teach him, it seems that Victor did make progress in his behavior towards other people. At the Itard home, housekeeper Madame Guérin was setting the table one evening while crying over the loss of her husband. Victor stopped what he was doing and displayed consoling behavior towards her. Itard reported on this progress.
Language
When looking at the association between language and intellect, French society considered one with the other. Unless cared for by friends or family, most people considered "dumb" ended up in horrible, ghastly conditions. However, around 1750, something different was happening in Paris. A French priest, Charles-Michel de l'ÉpéeCharles-Michel de l'Épée
Abbé Charles-Michel de l'Épée was a philanthropic educator of 18th-century France who has become known as the "Father of the Deaf".-Overview:...
, created a school to educate deaf-mutes. His institution was made into a National Institute in 1790. This new interest and moral obligation towards deaf-mutes inspired Itard to nurture and attempt to teach Victor language. "He had Locke's and Condiallac's theory that we are born with empty heads and that our ideas arise from what we perceive and experience. Having experienced almost nothing of society, the boy remained a savage."
Throughout the years Itard spent working with Victor, he made some gradual progress. Victor understood the meaning of actions and used what Shattuck describes as "action language", which Itard regarded as a kind of primitive form of communication. However, Itard still could not get Victor to speak. He wondered why Victor would choose to remain mute when he had already proved that he was not, in fact, deaf. Victor also did not understand tones of voice. Itard proclaimed "Victor was the mental and psychological equivalent of a born deaf-mute. There would be little point in trying to teach him to speak by the normal means of repeating sounds if he didn't really hear them."
Shattuck critiques Itard's process of education, wondering why he never attempted to teach Victor to use sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
. Regardless, today there are certain hypotheses that Shattuck applies to Victor. "One is that the Wild Boy, though born normal, developed a serious mental or psychological disturbance before his abandonment. Precocious schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, infantile psychosis, autism—a number of technical terms have been applied to his position. Several psychiatrists I have consulted favor this approach. It provides both a motivation for abandonment and an explanation for his partial recovery under Itard's treatment."
Victor died in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1828 in the home of Madame Guérin.
Dramatization
Victor's life was dramatized in François TruffautFrançois Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's 1970 film L'Enfant sauvage
The Wild Child
The Wild Child is a French film by director François Truffaut. The film features Jean-Pierre Cargol, François Truffaut, Françoise Seigner and Jean Dasté. The film had a total of 1,458,164 admissions in France...
(marketed in the UK as The Wild Boy and in the US as The Wild Child).
Victor's story was retold through dramatizations in a fourth-season episode of In Search Of..., titled "Wild Children", in 1980.
Victor's story was also dramatized through puppetry in an ensemble theater performance also called The Wild Child by Hand2Mouth Theatre
Hand2Mouth Theatre
Hand2Mouth Theatre is an ensemble cast group based in Portland, Oregon. The group collaborative experimentally to generate their performances, and evolve all language, movement, and design elements themselves—instead of working from a pre-written script....
, a nonprofit theatre group in Portland, Oregon, in 2004.
In literature
Victor's life has been fictionalized in the 2003 novel, Wild Boy by Jill DawsonJill Dawson
Jill Dawson is an English poet and novelist who grew up in Durham, England. She began publishing her poems in pamphlets and small magazines. Her first book, Trick of the Light, was published in 1996...
, and in the title novella of the 2010 collection Wild Child and Other Stories by T. C. Boyle.
Recent commentary
Professor Uta FrithUta Frith
Uta Frith FRS FBA is a leading developmental psychologist working at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She has pioneered much of the current research in autism and dyslexia, and has written several books on these issues. Her book 'Autism: Explaining the Enigma'...
has stated she believes Victor displayed the signs of autism
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
.
In March 2008, following the disclosure that Misha Defonseca
Misha Defonseca
Misha Defonseca , born as Monique de Wael, is a Belgian writer and the author of Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, first published in 1997 and at that time professed to be a memoir. It became an instant success in Europe and was translated into 18 languages...
's best-selling book, later turned into film, Survivre Avec les Loups (Survival with Wolves) was a fake, there was a debate in the French media (newspapers, radio and television) concerning the numerous false cases of feral children blindly accredited: although there are numerous books on this subject, almost none of them have been based on archives, the authors using rather dubious second or third-hand, printed information. According to French surgeon Serge Aroles, who has written a general study of feral children based on archives, almost all of these cases are fakes. According to Aroles, Victor of Aveyron is not a genuine feral child: "Don't forget that Truffaut's movie is... a movie!" According to Aroles, the scars on the body of Victor were not the consequences of a wild life in the forests, but rather of physical abuse (a fact the film alludes to with at least one scar).
Further reading
- Mémoire (1801) et Rapport sur Victor de l'Aveyron (1806) édition électronique at Universite du Quebec a Chicoutime.
- An Historical Account of the Discovery and Education of a Savage Man: Or, the First Developments, Physical and Moral, of the Young Savage Caught in the Woods Near Aveyron in the Year 1798 - free Google fulltext of the English-language translation of the book; published in 1802.
- Harlan LaneHarlan LaneHarlan Lane is Distinguished University professor of psychology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States, and founder of the Center for Research in Hearing, Speech, and Language. His research is focused on speech, Deaf culture, and sign language. Lane was born in...
(1975). The Wild Boy of Aveyron. (Hardcover ISBN 0-674-95282-0 & Paperback ISBN 0-674-95300-2) Cambridge: Harvard University Press. - R. Shattuck (1980). The Forbidden Experiment: the Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron. New York: Kodansha International.
- For an opportune critical approach based on archives : Serge Aroles, L'Enigme des enfants-loups (The Enigma of wolf-children), chap. XXXI ; 2007, ISBN 2748339096.