Often the pursuit of knowledge leaves victims, and in the case of Wild Children, there is always a victim. Genie is only one of about fifty cases of children that due to isolation, are unable to develop speech. Her story is one of tragedy and abuse, from a young age she was abused by her father and neglected by her mother. She was not raised and led to develop in a stable or nurturing environment. Genie was born the fourth child to Irene and Clark, and one of two to survive their abuse. After a life saving blood transfusion left her impaired, her father locked her away in isolation for the entirety of her childhood, but once discovered everything changed. The role of therapist and scientist were twisted in the case of Genie. Upon Discovery
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The tie between these two wild children is astounding. Their situation are almost identical, in the sense they were discovered around the same ages, as well as the actions used to teach them language, and eventually their poor integration into society and being lost in time. "After the characters were let on the screen, Itard became only more successful and famous, Victor, more forgotten." (Chapter 2, Premonitions, pg. 75) After the movie the Wild Child, which was about Victor and his story, Victor was left to survive until his death at the age of 40, the same went for Genie, she was forgotten and left alone for the rest of her days once she was no longer any use to the researchers. The researchers indeed went on to become known in their fields and both Genie and Victor the victims of fame were left to fade into the past. Both Genie and Victor aligned with Chomsky’s theory until syntax. Syntax is where most of the wild children fail and are given up on. Genie and Victor were easily able to perform Semantics with word identification but they failed at what truly makes language, which is grammar. These two left down Chomsky’s theory as they were never able to learn grammar and higher linguistics, it seems that language is not innate, or at least in the case of
The tie between these two wild children is astounding. Their situation are almost identical, in the sense they were discovered around the same ages, as well as the actions used to teach them language, and eventually their poor integration into society and being lost in time. "After the characters were let on the screen, Itard became only more successful and famous, Victor, more forgotten." (Chapter 2, Premonitions, pg. 75) After the movie the Wild Child, which was about Victor and his story, Victor was left to survive until his death at the age of 40, the same went for Genie, she was forgotten and left alone for the rest of her days once she was no longer any use to the researchers. The researchers indeed went on to become known in their fields and both Genie and Victor the victims of fame were left to fade into the past. Both Genie and Victor aligned with Chomsky’s theory until syntax. Syntax is where most of the wild children fail and are given up on. Genie and Victor were easily able to perform Semantics with word identification but they failed at what truly makes language, which is grammar. These two left down Chomsky’s theory as they were never able to learn grammar and higher linguistics, it seems that language is not innate, or at least in the case of