The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

"I saw this film more than 30 years ago. It describes an enigmatic real-life character who turned up in a village in Nuremberg in 1828. He has no language and seems completely outside of human culture, and is taken in by a local doctor who tries to socialise him. Part of the enigma about Kaspar Hauser was his origins: Was he abandoned? Did he have an important family history? But the big question the film raises is how could somebody end up outside of human society, and find it so hard to develop language and to make sense of people? Kaspar Hauser might be the first well-documented case of autism in literature , even in history. If some people wonder whether autism is just a modern phenomenon, here we have a very early account. The film (and the original book) raises very similar issues to those raised in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , and shares a main character who is somehow detached from humanity. Like The Curious Incident , Kaspar Hauser also suffered neglect and abuse (of a different kind – he was reportedly chained up and isolated for the first 17 years of his life), and again this is not common among autistic people. Indeed, it could be more similar to the case of Genie , a so-called feral child who was also reared in isolation and never properly developed language or social skills. I think readers have a fascination with a character who is outside of mainstream culture. Some autistic people describe themselves as feeling as though they came from another planet: they watch human interaction and they don’t quite understand it. There’s even a website created by autistic people: wrongplanet.net . It creates an outsider’s point of view, which I think works very well in literature and film."