Course Blog

In The Island of Dr. Moreau, the three fully human characters exercise their control over Dr. Moreau’s creations with weapons. This control manifests as blind obedience to the Law that Moreau instilled in them. The creatures are made to recite the Law to prove that they understand their subservience to Moreau, and understand how he wishes for them to behave. But neither Moreau nor Montgomery ever attempts to communicate with the creatures without a weapon. When the three men gather the creatures together to find who has broken the Law, Moreau uses a weapon and a commanding tone to enforce the Law: as he makes them recite the Law, he stops them at the point that forbids the consumption of flesh to tell them he knows that this Law has been broken. “’Who is he?’ cried Moreau, and looked round at their faces, cracking his whip” (69). Moreau does not ask the creatures why they let the Law be broken, but instead intimidates them into obeying the Law in the future. The Law is never enforced without the context of a weapon, which makes the obedience of the Law something done out of fear. Even when Moreau is not there, the creatures recite the Law fearfully, “glancing furtively” (45) at one another as they blindly repeat the Law in the presence of Prendick.

After Moreau and Montgomery die, Prendick begins to fear that this will set off a chain reaction: “They know now that we of the Whips could be killed, even as they themselves were killed…” (91). The capitalization of “Whip” demonstrates Prendick’s recognition of the power of that object. The whip is what gives him power over these creatures, not the Law. Moreau and Montgomery feared the breaking of the Law against eating flesh because this was a challenge of the Law that gave the creatures the power of violence. Once this Law is broken, the creatures know that violence can be achieved without punishment, and they can even begin to challenge the punisher with this power.

While Prendick tries to assert the same authority that Moreau and Montgomery did, he cannot instill fear of the Law in the creatures after that the enforcers of the Law are gone. The creatures begin to lose their humanity after Moreau and Montgomery die, slowly gaining back their animal instincts and mannerisms. The Law is forgotten after the fear of punishment is gone.

This dynamic can be seen as an allegory for control over human beings. If a group of people is taught obedience through fear of punishment, they will only obey for as long as that fear is legitimate. As soon as they don’t feel threatened, they will disregard the pretense that they hold any reverence for the law. In order to maintain control, the people must have a real belief in the value of law.

H.G. Wells could have meant for this allegory to represent the work of Christian missionaries to convert natives of colonized lands in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The methods of these missionaries often involved the use of forceful indoctrination, threatening natives with punishment if they did not participate in Christian rituals. But the natives continued to practice their own beliefs in secret, demonstrating that, at the very least, they didn’t view Christian law as the sole true law. Wells wanted to show that these methods were futile; any “uncivilized” people will only follow a new law out of fear. But the beliefs behind these laws hold no value to them, and once freed from fear of consequence, they will revert to their old ways.

When Prendick first discovers the island and its inhabitants, he quickly notices their features. Prendick states that one of the islanders is “clothed in bluish cloth, and was of a copper-coloured hue, with black hair. It seemed grotesque ugliness was an invariable character of these islanders” (Wells 17). Here, Wells uses human-like characteristics and color symbolism to contrast the animalistic and human tendencies of the creatures Moreau created. For instance, being “clothed” suggests a humanlike sense of pride. Humans always walk around clothed, but animals do not. To this extent, Wells was trying to establish that the islanders had some qualities that set them apart from other animals.

Additionally, Wells is very intentional about his use of color symbolism. Referring to “bluish cloth,” “black hair” and a “copper-coloured [skin] hue” arouses various connotations. Blue is unusual to find naturally on cloth. It requires a dyeing process that takes time and thought. By dressing the islanders in blue, Wells suggests they have human characteristics or influences that give them a sense of fashion, thus differentiating them from animals. Blue is also representative of hope and class. Wells may have dressed the islanders in blue in order to depict Moreau’s hope that they will continue gaining humanlike qualities.

Furthermore, the islanders’ “copper-coloured hue” makes them stand out from the typical white Englishman of the time. The Longman Anthology describes the Victorian Age as a period of “blatant racism” (Damrosch 1064). Therefore, the islanders’ different skin tone would have made them appear as having less importance than Prendick, Moreau, and Montgomery, each of whom is assumedly white and Western European. Having “black hair” is also critical to the islanders’ physicality. Firstly, “hair” is different than fur, as hair is connected to humans whereas fur is connected to animals. The “blackness” of the hair further emphasizes the islanders’ differences from the fair skin and hair of Englishmen.

In relation to the novel as a whole, Moreau’s attempt to create humans from animals relates to The Longman Anthology’s description of the Victorian Age as a period of reform. Moreau wanted a scientific way to invent his equal: He was attempting to create a being similar to himself. He taught his creatures how to care about fashion and dye clothes; he even gave them hair. However, Moreau failed because the islanders never possessed true class, as Prendick would have defined it. The islanders’ “black hair” is only one characteristic that distinguishes them from the ideal Englishmen of the time. By placing Moreau’s experimental creatures somewhere between English prestige and Animalia, Wells asserts that it would be impossible for animals or anyone of different backgrounds to be capable of success in the way it was stereotypically defined by white, high-class Englishmen.

When he wrote this book, Wells was passionate against vivisection. If vivisection was proven possible, it would philosophically challenge peoples’ ideas of what humanity is and how to distinguish humans from other animals. If successful, Moreau’s experiments would have reformed religious, social, and scientific perspectives of the time. Nevertheless, Wells designed the book so that Moreau failed, and his failed attempt to create his human equal may be Wells’ way of demonstrating how new perspectives on equality were “destroy[ing] the social fabric” of England (Damrosch 1059). Wells’ critique of giving new people and ideas popularity and equality could have meant that he did not support the reforms or social movements of the time.

(I know this is the example quote from the prompt outline but I swear I coincidentally picked the same passage during the exercise in class before I ever saw the prompt sheet)

“Each of these creatures, despite its human form, its rag of clothing, and the rough humanity of its bodily form, had woven into it, into its movements into the expression of its countenance, into its whole presence, some now irresistible suggestion of a hog, a swinish taint, the unmistakable mark of the beast.” (29)

In this passage, Prendick has left his room and wandered into the forest, where he comes across a trio of “grotesque human figures” and stops to observe them. Although there are many different species of man-animal hybrids on the island, these are among the first he has seen.

The most frequently used word in the passage is “it,” which is used to describe the pig-men hybrids. His use of the term “it” shows Prendick’s distaste for what he sees and his refusal to acknowledge them in the same terms as he would a full human. The passage could have easily been “Each of these creatures, despite their human forms, their rags of clothing, and the rough humanity of their bodily forms…” but Prendick makes the choice to identify each creature as an “it,” as a thing instead of an actual living gendered being.

Interestingly, Prendick never specifically describes exactly which features resemble those of a pig, nor how strongly. The words “suggestion,” “taint,” and “mark” all lack a sense of the concrete, despite being paired with words like “irresistible” and “unmistakable.” This almost oxymoronic assertion of the pig-ness of these humanoids leaves their actual physical appearance up to the reader’s imagination. This means that these creatures could have any degree of animalistic features, depending on the reader.

Prendick is both horrified and fascinated by the intertwining of man and beast in these creatures’ appearances. Wells’ places emphasis on the visual unmistakability of these combinations, and yet as these animals/men are unavoidable throughout the island, Prendick also can’t help but notice distinctly human qualities about them. It is ironic that among the first humanoid creatures he sees on the island are part pig, as “pig” is a common insult among “real” men. A pig is stereotypically slow, fat, dumb, dirty, and lazy. These human focal points and the constant reoccurrence of man-beasts throughout the island begs the question, “what makes a human a human?” and plants a seed in the reader’s mind that perhaps men aren’t all that different from animals after all.

The Island or Dr. Moreau features many binaries classic to Victorian literature; nature vs. technology, religion vs. science, etc. One binary that is strongly featured in this novel is that of luck vs. safety, that which we can control versus that which we cannot, and how belief in this binary controls Edward Prendick’s actions throughout the novel.

Prendick’s narration from the very beginning perfectly outlines this concept:

“But in the first place, I must state that there never were four men in the dingy; the number was three. Constans… luckily for us, and unluckily for himself, did not reach us” (1).

Here we have not merely a description of how our main character came to be on the dingey later found by Montgomery, but a story of chance and safety, and more specifically, odds.

It is by pure chance that Prendick has become the narrator of our story, and this changes the way readers might understand personal power throughout the tale. Edward survived the sinking of the Lady Vain, and he survived again when the other members on the dingy did not, but this is not because of any assertive action on Prendick’s part, but mere coincidences stacked upon each other.

From the very beginning, H.G. Wells presents us with this idea that “safety” as it exists in the novel is arbitrary. While Prendick has described how he came to be on the Lady Vain’s dingy, he has also given us a paragraph of numbers to sift through. There could have been four men on the dingy, but there were only three. One page later, Prendick is the only man left on the dingy, following his companions’ brawl and slip overboard. Here Prendick claims, “I remember laughing at that and wondering why I laughed” (2). This laugh is resonant of Edward recognizing his own mortality in the face of forces beyond his control. He is the last man standing, and who can say that he has the ability to keep things this way? The novel is not one in which Prendick’s choices guarantee his safety, which we see time and time again.

The Island of Dr. Moreau poses that luck and safety mere perceptions. Beyond this, any attempt to secure safety for yourself and others is futile. Edward mentions how while his companions on the dingey struggled, he “intended to help Helmar by grasping the sailor’s leg” (2) but this did not change the outcome of neither man surviving. Prendick might as well have done nothing, for all of the good his assistance proved to be. Our narrator learns early in the novel that personal agency does not guarantee a change of outcome, and this affects his behavior for the rest of the novel.

We see Prendick fall victim to the whim of others despite his own attempts to secure safety for himself. He choses to trust Montgomery when he rescues our narrator yet is then cast adrift by Moreau and the boatmen when he is not wanted. How does Prendick respond to this decision? “I suddenly began to sob and weep as I had never done since I was a little child” (16). It is not until “the islanders, seeing [Edward] was really adrift, took pity on [him]” that our narrator is allowed onto the island to stay (16). Later, when Prendick believes he has discovered the truth about Dr. Moreau’s experiments, he decides to drown himself rather than be a victim of the doctor, but in the end cannot do it, noting “It was not in me then to go out and drown myself” (47). It is unclear if Edward can truly be safe whether he drowns himself or chooses to stay alive on the island, to the point where his “choice” is arbitrary.

While The Island of Dr. Moreau does not outright declare that safety is a matter of luck, it seems obvious from Prendick’s own actions that one cannot really choose to make his life safer. Rather this occurs from a series of actions outside of one’s personal control. I think this perfectly demonstrates the feelings of many in the Victorian era who strode to make their lives better, or even just to make their lives livable. It is not realistic to say that we always have a choice and can always use choices to make our lives better. However, Prendick does survive the novel, and perhaps this is a positive note; that while we cannot always choose the trajectory of our lives, there is some way in which we can keep ourselves going, and not give up searching for better.

To the creatures, Dr. Moreau is God, he is the creator and the master to which they answer to. By instilling a sort of social code into his creatures Moreau taints his intentions, making it clear that this was not just about the physiological science but the psychological science within it. These are qualities of life that regular animals do not hold, qualities that Moreau had to teach them. Moreau believes that he religiously can understand God, making him a successor of his will, “I fancy I have seen more of the ways of this world’s Maker than you – for I have sought his laws, in my way, all my life, while you, I understand, have been collecting butterflies” (55). He is not just a scientist in his own mind, but the successor of God’s will, having been given the knowledge he has to further humanity. In his mind, there was no one else that was meant to do what he has, not because it’s immoral and cruel, but because his fate is much grander than that of any other scientist. Moreau claims, “This extraordinary branch of knowledge has never been sought as an end, and systematically, by modern investigators, until I took it up! … I was the first man to take up this question armed with antiseptic surgery, and with a real scientific knowledge of the laws of growth” (53). With the tools and knowledge he had gathered throughout his life, there was no other man like Moreau than to pass knowledge onto humanity and to improve upon their species.

Dr. Moreau as a character has more knowledge and experience with science than any other characters. Those who have knowledge hold a power over those who do not. Moreau seemingly understands his dominance in social positions and names himself both master and little God of his island. With the power to take one animal and shape it into another Dr. Moreau dictates that he has the power to create new beings. He seems to see himself in a view as a sculptor of creatures, their creator, “These creatures you have seen are animals carven and wrought into new shapes.” (53). Lines like this seem to imply that he was doing this to create not a false humanity of creatures unbeknownst to the world, yet whether he could perfect all creatures around him. In his mind, to become perfect an animal must become human, which seems to be his exact intention for choosing the human being as the mold. While on page 54 he claims that he had chosen that form by chance, it seems that the only form which could be perfect would be the human being of whom has a higher sense of knowledge and emotionality. He claims, “I suppose there is something in the human form that appeals to the artistic turn of the mind more powerfully than any animal shape can” yet this does not seem to be what he is implying (54). The human form is more artistic because Moreau does not see beauty in animals and different species, he sees beauty in humanity and singularly humanity. Yet taking the mold of a human was not enough, it would only be enough once they thought and acted as humans rather than animals. “A pig may be educated… Very much of what we call moral education is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion” (54). There was something in the act of being an animal that Moreau instilled in the creatures was not allowed, “I turn them out when I begin to feel the beast in them… they all dread this house and me. There is a kind of travesty of humanity over there. They only sicken me with a sense of failure” (59). Moreau feels intense feelings against the creatures that act as they are, sees that if they are not perfect and human, they are not to be at all. I believe that he feels this way as it is a rejection of his godliness. If he cannot create or improve upon the animal, to create an animal that looks and acts like a human, he sees himself as unworthy, or a failure. This seems quite reminiscent of The Fin De Siecle, as they discuss the intertwining between science and religion. The more science became prominent, the more religion did as well, rather than canceling itself out. In Moreau’s life, the more science became important, the more he recognized himself as a religious figure to the creatures, designating himself in a state of godliness and power.

“They wore turbans, too, and thereunder peered out their elfin faces at me, faces with protruding lower jaws and bright eyes” (17).

When he firsts arrives on the island, Prendick immediately notices the differences between himself and the residents of the island of Dr. Moreau.  Specifically, he focuses on the features of the islanders’ faces, describing their heads, jaws, and eyes.  The first thing that Prendick notices about the islanders is that they are wearing turbans. Prendick combines the observation of the islanders’ turbans with the pronoun “they” and by doing so immediately “others” the islanders as different from himself.  The use of the pronouns “they” and “their” separates the islanders from Prendick in a racial sense.  Prendick views the islanders as others because they are wearing turbans and he is not. A well-known form of “othering” is Orientalism, which is the belief that the East, including Middle Eastern countries, is fundamentally different and therefore inferior from the West.  When talking about Orientalism and describing the East, westerners will often times use the word “backwards” to describe Middle Eastern and Asian countries.  Describing a country and its people as “backwards” signals that that country is unnatural or not normal because it has cultural practices, religions, and in this case people with physical appearances that are not identical to those in the West.  Prendick notices that the islanders are wearing turbans and have different shaped faces than himself, Montgomery, and Dr. Moreau and therefore separates himself because they differ from the white westerners that he perceives as normal and natural.  By implying that something is unnatural signals at its inferiority, which is a key part of Orientalism.  Prendick views himself as superior and the islanders as inferior simply because they look different from him as well as Montgomery and Dr. Moreau, who all hail from Western Europe.

Another way in which Prendick classifies the islanders as others in the context of Orientalism is by describing their faces as deformed and “elfin.”  “Elfin” can be interpreted as appearing similar to an elf, which is universally known as a mythical and magical creature.  In myths and fairytales, elves are often portrayed as cheerful woodland or water creatures who act as sidekicks or comedic relief.  Elves are not the protagonists in stories, and often assist the hero or heroine in achieving their goals.  They are never the characters in stories who save the day, or battle a monster, or even find true love.  Elves are frequently viewed as incapable of anything heroic and are thus perceived as delicate and submissive creatures who are not on the same level as human beings. Prendick’s description of the islanders as “elfin” suggests that he does not view them as human beings like himself, Montgomery, and Dr. Moreau.  Furthermore, Prendick describes the islanders’ “faces with protruding lower jaws and bright eyes.”  Merely mentioning these differences in the islanders’ facial structure and likening the islanders to mythical, non-human creatures affirms that Prendick is practicing aspects of Orientalism and othering the islanders as inferior, less than human creatures.

“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).

The people of Britain in the late Victorian era were simultaneously caught between the feelings of fear and courage, or between both the romantic excitement and the anxiety of new innovations in the Industrial Revolution. In this passage, the narrator speaks of such contradiction as he recalls observing one of the Beast People, the increasingly animalistic Leopard Man, he had cornered in a scene of chase. The words “creature” and “animal” juxtapose the following “human” and “humanity,” further placing emphasis on the “strange contradiction” the narrator mulls over to the reader. There is also the use of “perfectly animal” and “imperfectly human,” along with the idea of “attitude” versus “face.” All of these opposing words in this passage are essential to the root of the novel—questions of identity and place. In this passage, Prendick is FINALLY able to see things the correct way, and how wrong these creatures are being treated by Dr. Moreau. It is fitting that it takes him to see the Leopard Man, whom he is about to shoot and kill, in his animal identity to realize the Leopard Man’s humanity in relation to his own. Though he has finally recognized the humanity in this creature, the Leopard Man is still an “other” to Prendick—still an “it” and not a “he.” The Leopard Man’s identity remained dual until his death.

With the words “I cannot explain the fact,” Prendick admits his own uncertainty. The phrase, which is separated from the rest of the sentence using dashes, pops out to the reader on the page. This feeling of uncertainty goes along with the idea of contradiction in the Victorian age, and a widespread emotion among people in the emergence of new technologies and innovations. It is the same feeling of uncertainty that people felt towards Time. The Longman Anthology of British Literature discusses the people’s increasing struggle with Time during the end of the nineteenth century, a period which has also been labelled the “Age of Doubt.” Many felt there was too much time, especially with the creation of train time tables and such, but many also felt there was too little time as innovation and technology began to make everything move so much faster. Prendick says he spent a year on the island. A year full of fearful discoveries and innovations on the island of Dr. Moreau, yet he “professed to recall nothing” for the space of a year. As for the notion of the Leopard Man’s, and his fellow Beast People’s, humanity, their artificial yet true humanity discovered by Prendick in this passage continued to haunt him for years following his stint on the island. And in the safety of his home, Time turned even more slowly than before.

While Prendick is recounting the story, he admits to us, his readers, that he is also still trying to work out the meaning of everything he encountered on the island. He is not quite sure of who he is.  Like his fellow Victorians, is still uncertain what to make of all the innovation of Dr. Moreau. Though he claims he is disgusted by such experiments, he is clearly in awe to some degree as well. Just as the Beast People were stuck between human and animal forms of identity, Prendick now finds himself distanced from his fellow men—highlighting the question of identity that come up all throughout The Island of Dr. Moreau and especially this particular passage, which points such a duality out to the reader.

“Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand; their mock-human existence began in agony, was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau-and for what?” (74).

In this quote, Edward Prendick is reflecting on the life of the Beast People that Moreau has created and then abandoned, left to survive on their own. Prendick realizes that the Beast People are caught between two worlds, the animal and the human. Wells demonstrates this struggle of the Beast People through his word choice, which reflects the lack of power the Beast People have over their lives. This ultimately reveals that the Beast People are at the mercy of their creator, Moreau, and that they will forever exist in a realm of otherness as a result of Moreau’s experiments.

Wells uses words that demonstrate the Beast People’s lack of power in all aspects of their life. The Beast People are caught in the “shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand” (74). The word “shackles” stands out immediately because it provides an image of the Beast People being enslaved or bound within humanity. This helps illustrate that the Beast People are trapped in the human world physically due to their altered forms. The Beast People are also trapped in the human world emotionally, which is revealed through the feeling of “fear that never [dies]”. The word “fear” suggests that the Beast People are afraid of something, in this case Moreau and being brought back to his laboratory. The Beast People constantly carry around this feeling, which shows the emotional weight of being caught between two worlds. The Beast People are trapped between the animal and the human world in every potential way. Moreau has affected their physical and emotional state and has also managed to gain control over their mental state. This is seen through the Beast People’s inability to understand the laws that govern their community. The use of the word “fretted” shows the worry the Beast People deal with because they are expected to abide by these laws that they unfortunately cannot understand. The reason they cannot understand them is because they are not fully human, much to Moreau’s chagrin. This quote reveals that the Beast People have no control over their lives; Moreau has affected them physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Through this quote it is also revealed that time is an important factor in the lives of the Beast People. The importance of time is also reflected in the Longman Anthology, which discusses how “the Victorians were troubled by Time” (1055). While the Victorians struggled with Time in regards to the Industrial Revolution, the Beast People grapple with Time in terms of their existence. However, the Beast People’s existence is a result of Moreau’s attempts to accomplish a new technology, which was a factor in the Industrial Revolution. The word “long” appears in this quote twice, which shows the reader the existence of time within the novel. The use of the word “long” reflects an extended period of time in which the Beast People suffer. The phrase “never died”, which refers to the fear the Beast People feel, also showcases time; there is no end in sight for the Beast People’s agony.

Moreau has trapped these Beast People between two worlds, the animal and the human. They exist in a space of otherness, not quite animal and not quite human. This is reflected in their “mock-human existence”. They are imitating being human, but cannot fully achieve humanity because of their animal instincts and form. As a result of living in between these two spaces, the Beast People do not have power over their lives because they don’t know which realm they should occupy. Moreau tells them they should be human, but their bodies and natural instincts tell them they are animal. This constant battle is just another way the Beast People are caught in an eternal struggle. If one does not even know what to call themself, how can they live in peace?