The Illustrated Man

Wouldn't it be strange to see a man covered in tattoos? I mean you see some people with many tattoos, but a person with tattoos that seem to change position? Eww! Also, what would it be like if you could see the future? Would you see yourself as a doctor or lawyer. You might be a teacher or a salesman. Could you see yourself strangling your wife? Hopefully you would not. This happened, however, in the short story called The Illustrated Man.

In the book called The Illustrated Man, a man works at a carnival named William . He gets fired because he is too fat to work anymore. He offers to become a tattoo freak in exchange for a job. William finds a mysterious old woman who offers to tattoo or "illustrate" him. He says yes, but the old woman tells him that a tattoo on his chest and on his back are not ready to be ready to be revealed. He reveals the tattoo showing himself killing his wife. The image becomes a real when he kills his wife because she yell at him. He tries to get the tattoo removed, but it is lodged in his bone (meaning he would have to die for it to be gone). Eventually he decides to get it removed. The freaks look at the tattoo on his back which shows freaks staring at a tattoo on his back etc.

There were many freak shows, sometimes with a tattooed man, during the 1840-1940 period. In 1841 a man named P.T Barnum owned an exhibit including freaks. One of them was a tattooed man. Not many carnivals contain freak exhibits nowadays. Anyways, how could that mysterious woman know the future? In the book she was described as old and wrinkly. Did she want him to die? Has she done similar things to other people? I think this old woman may be related to modern day fortune tellers. The tattoo lady was able to tell the future, but she could've faked it somehow. Maybe she noticed peculiar things about him to lead her to those conclusions. Also, if William had looked at the tattoo before would he have still killed himself? I wonder...