Genie in a Bottle

Recently, I have become fascinated with the concept of "feral children." For those of you who do not know, a feral child is a child who has been raised in isolation or by animals. Think Romulus/Remus and Tarzan.

In 1970, welfare authorities discovered a feral child (who they call "Genie") who had been strapped to a potty chair in a dark room
for 13 years. She had been beaten and isolated from the world by her father. Other accounts of feral children include a wolf-boy and an abandoned boy who was raised in the African bush by monkeys. These accounts seem too strange to be true, almost circus freak-ish.

While reading a book about Genie and other ferals, I came across this interesting passage...
"So wild children exist in the fault line between disgust and desire. They embody our desire for escape, freedom and wonder; yet they also provoke the disgust felt for the merely corporeal, the wholly physical- the disgust for that which has no self, no love and no remorse" (237).
- Savage Girls and Wild Boys, Michael Newton

It is definitely an interesting book and will be available in VanPelt as soon as I return it.
Also, if you have a spare forty minutes or so, there is a really great documentary on the discovery of Genie and the attempts to assimilate her into society.

Part 1

-Ali Blum