Religious life during the Victorian Era centered around the strict Evangelical church, which held the Victorians to a rigid ideal of morality (Longman). This strict, self-restrictive religious culture is reflected in The Laws of the Beast Men on the island which read as followed:
“Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
“Not to suck up drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
“Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
“Not to claw Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
“Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”
And so from the prohibition of these acts of folly, on to the prohibition of what I thought then were the maddest, most impossible and most indecent things one could well imagine (43).
The laws themselves appear to mirror the format of the Ten Commandments, using “Never to go…” in lieu of “Thou shall not.” The list is clear and incontestable, just as the language of the Ten Commandments leaves little or nothing to interpretation. The Law prohibited the Beast Men from chasing other Men – which when discussing creatures labeled as Beasts by the narrator leads me to believe the chase prohibited is one of malicious intent – just as the Ten commandments prohibit murder of another man. Even the restriction on the consumption of Flesh and Fish, while holding its scientific reasoning to slow the degeneration of the Beast Men back into animals, is reminiscent of the restrictions on consumption of meat during certain periods of the Christian Religious calendar. These restrictions are therefore a reflection of the line of morality in Victorian society, as well as the line of morality within the society of the island itself.
The Sayer of the Law would then take on a Moses-like position within the Beast Men if one were to subscribe to the belief that the Law mirrors the Ten Commandments. Moses received the list of commandments that all must follow in order to avoid punishment in the Christian religions, just as the Law that the Sayer creates must be learned and followed in order to avoid the “house of pain” (43). Moses was the deliverer of the Hebrews, leading them from their enslavement in Egypt to the promised land that God had told him of. The Sayer of the Law did not personally lead the other Beast Men to their new homes in the forests, removed from the House of Pain in which they were created, but his word and law was meant to deliver them from the punishment and pain that Moreau could inflict within his enclosure. His Law therefore kept the Beast Men safe from their creator’s wrath, and in his good graces, just as the Ten Commandments do according to the Bible.
The idea of the House of Pain closely relates to the idea of Hell in my mind, as both are where souls go to suffer the consequences of their immoral actions, which makes the role of Moreau within this entire analogy rather complicated. He is both the creator of the Beast Men, and their punisher, which could equate him to God, who is simultaneously the giver of life and the punisher of the immoral for Evangelicals. However Moreau also rules over the House of Pain, where the Beast Men appear to return to after they break the Law, never to rejoin society. However it is not God, but Lucifer who rules over the punishment of human souls in Hell. The easy answer to me seems to be that Moreau is both God and Satan to the Beast Men, but that then leads me to the question of whether or not HG Wells was proposing that God is also both beings within his own society’s religion.
This is really interesting to me as a kind of allegory for religion in England and the religious crises that were affecting society at the end of the century. There are so many mentions in the novel of “the bestial mark,” which is a direct reference to “the mark of the beast” – meaning the devil in Christian ideology. The beast-people who are “marked” are somehow related to the devil, as is Moreau; maybe Moreau is the one who marked them through vivisection?