The book, The Elephant Man, is set in England in Victorian times at the end of the eighteen hundreds. The book describes some of the ways of life at the time including how people get around by horse and cart, and the primitive way that surgery is performed. The English people at that time were interested in things that were exotic or different, and that is why freak shows made money. Rich people were interested in these things too, although they pretended to be better, and that is why so many people wanted to come to visit Merrick and bring him gifts. Only some of his visitors were true friends, the rest were just curious, like the poorer people that Renshaw brought to look at Merrick at night. If the story had happened in modern times, people would not have been so cruel to Merrick, they would not have believed the story that his mother had been run down by an elephant when she was pregnant, and he probably could have had operations to make him look better.