Wild Child Assessment

BORN TO BE WILD (Wild Child version)

On all fours runnin'
come out of the forest
‘cause our knowledge is best.
This boy will communicate,
Doc. Itard will make it happen.
Give the glass to his love embrace
then lock him in the closet
and see Victor explode.

Use hot water and cold,
tuning forks and drum beats;
Victor will perceive.
Now Victor listen to my voice,
and Genie, say it with me now.
Speak the words in a love embrace,
try to be like one of us;
Education is all.

Like a true nature's child
They were born, born to be wild
They could climb so high,
If only they would try...

Born to be wild
Born to be wild




Since I am not much of an artist and really do not have the time or means to film a video this week, I decided to go with the changing of a song's lyrics, and I felt this song was pretty appropriate for the topic, but it turned out to be a bit hard to work with (the set up of things and the syllable counts etc.), so you'll have to forgive me for any awkwardness in the way things are worded or the way it is organized; I would love to write my own song about the Wild Child but I'm not much of a musician either. So for this "song" to be understood, one must think sort of in the abstract sense and understand that more is intended than can actually be said within the confinements of the song structure.
So the answer to the first question, "Why does Dr. Itard want Victor to speak?" is hinted at when the song says "'cause our knowledge is best" and "Speak the words in a love embrace, try to be like one of us; education is all." Dr. Itard was a behavioralist who believed "that man brings nothing with him, that education is all."(Genie, p.73) He was looking to - through training and teaching the Wild child to speak - prove his theory that people are like blank slates, and all language they learn is taught to them (contrary to Chomsky's theory described by Abel that man is born with language sort of inside him and he has only to learn the "vocabulary"). According to Abel, "There are few sharp boundaries between men and animals" and "Human language sets us apart" (Man Is The Measure p.230). In the case of the Wild Child, people barely viewed him as a person because he could not speak, he did not have that one essential element of humanity, so Dr. Itard wanted to change that and 'civilize' Victor so that he could fit into society and meanwhile prove Itard right and make him well-known for this great accomplishment.
The second question is also answered throughout the lyrics of the song, but not in a straightforward way. "Give the glass to his love embrace then lock him in the closet and see Victor explode" refers to Dr. Itard's method of teaching him both justice/reasoning of what is right and wrong, and emotion. In the film Wild Child we saw the Dr. reward Victor for doing well in his lessons, then after doing nothing wrong, Victor was locked in the closet like he had been bad. Victor reasoned that this was uncalled for and unjust, and hence got angry and kicked and screamed and refused to go in the closet; this was Dr. Itard's way of testing Victor's sense of reasoning, justice and emotion. He also used other methods like using a very harsh tone of voice and seeing Victor break down crying, or drawing pictures and words and matching them with objects to teach Victor reasoning, and also the fact that he would receive an object AFTER he asked for it with words, not before. To teach Victor perception he tried to enhance the sensitivity of his "normal" senses that civilized people used, like hearing more instead of sniffing everything and being able to tell the temperature of water and respond to it like normal humans do. To teach Victor language, Dr. Itard tried not only saying words and having Victor feel the vibration of his throat and repeating words/sounds in front of a candle to see the effect the words should make with the breath leaving the mouth, but he also tried having Victor do alphabet puzzles, match objects with their names, and spell our the word "LAIT" in wooden letters, and of course he spoke to/around Victor as much as possible.