Throughout the novel, we see Dr. Moreau, through the eyes of Prendick, unsuccessfully attempt to apply a sense of law over the animals that reside on the island. Essentially, Dr. Moreau is trying to use a manmade construction of law and power on animals that are natural to the environment and, expectedly so, act in an animalistic way.
To do so, Dr. Moreau forces the “Beast Folk” (60) to memorize the laws of the land, referring to Dr. Moreau as “He” and “Him” (43), in a way that makes us assume that the animals think of Moreau as their own God.
Attached to these laws are punishments that are inflicted upon any of the beasts that fail to follow the laws. Prendick sees these punishments in action on page 21, stating, “See! I did a little thing, a wrong thing once. I jabbered, jabbered, stopped talking. None could understand. I am burnt, branded in the hand. He is great, he is good!” As we see through Prendick’s eyes, Moreau performs experiments on the Ape, a “Beast Folk”, that act out against the governing laws set in motion by Moreau in an attempt to make them more human through vivisection. Moreau is constantly trying to “humanize” the animals and make his dictatorship over the beasts stronger and more effective.
As Henderson and Sharpe document in “The Longman Anthology of British Literature”, these types of governing powers were not all that unfamiliar to the Victorian Era. Queen Victoria herself declared the overarching mission of all empires to be “to protect the poor natives and advance civilization” (Henderson and Sharpe, 1063). Viewing Moreau as the empire of the island he inhabits, he sees his work with experimentation of vivisection to be advancing civilization by revealing new knowledge about animals, in relation to humans, and making large strides during a crucial time for scientific advancements in the Victorian Era. “As befits a scientific age, most authors exhibited a willingness to experiment” (Henderson and Sharpe, 1068), much like what Moreau was doing secretly on the island. He is very much advancing society that Queen Victoria denotes as the most important part of an empire.
Moreau was not only helping to uncover more information about reactions in the body, but he was also applying a sense of power of the animals by constantly reminding them that although they may be learning humanistic actions and partaking in a human-like society, they will be set straight again if they deviate from these laws by receiving pain and punishment administered by Moreau himself, through the form of vivisection under the guise of experimentation.
However, although the idea of government and a general set of rules are very humanistic, the response to pain that anyone would naturally portray if they were sentenced to punishment is strictly animalistic. Moreau is in a continuous, lose-lose battle of trying to make these animals human, and then having the animals respond to pain and revert back to their natural, animalistic self.
As we see Moreau try to apply governing authority over the animals on the island through experimentation that was new and widely followed during this era, we also see the animals natural responses to the attempted taming of the natural, animalistic traits.
This is such an interesting concept, especially in the light of Althusser’s “always-already” subjectivity. The “laws” that Dr. Moreau imposes in order to make the animals less like beasts and more like men actually work the opposite way; they recite the laws to overcome their subjectivity, but the recitation just reinforces their roles AS subjects. I think that this must connect to the idea of Empire; the British, as they imposed their own laws on their colonists, were trying to make the colonists more like the British themselves, to “civilize” them, but they were really just reinforcing the British superiority over these subjects.
Like Maia, I agree with your theory that the laws Moreau creates in order to “civilize” the animals have, in fact, an opposite effect – however, I’m not sure I fully agree with your theory that pain is a strictly animalistic quality. In fact, I would argue that pain and fear are both intensely human qualities. There’s a quote in particular in “Island of Dr. Moreau” that seems to suggest this idea, when Prendick is about to kill one of the Beast-people: “It may seem a strange contradiction in me – I cannot explain the fact – but now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes, and its imperfectly human face distorted with terror, I realised again the fact of its humanity.” (72) There seems to be a complexity in the association of fear as animalistic in nature versus human in nature – perhaps the point Wells is trying to make is that humanity is, in fact, more closely intwined with the animalistic than one would think.