To a modern reader Dr. Moreau is the quintessential mad scientist \u2013 he has a hidden laboratory, he has sinister henchmen, and his experiments are evil and grotesque. But to simply dismiss Moreau as a madman would be to ignore the manner in which the doctor both adheres to his own vision of sanity, and manipulates the other characters (especially Prendick, as the end of the novel illustrates) so that they too \u2013 whether willingly or unwillingly \u2013 are reshaped by Moreau\u2019s warped ideal. He uses the traditional enforcers of Victorian culture \u2013 sanity or normality, the willingness to adhere to a dictated social code \u2013 to enforce not only his rule on the island but his own moral compass. The Beast-Men worship him, Montgomery obeys him, and even Prendick becomes accustomed to life on the island. Moreau\u2019s power to reshape the idea of sanity is just as chilling as his torturous reshaping of the animals\u2019 bodies.<\/p>\n
Moreau\u2019s first description of his own experiments are that they are \u201cnothing very dreadful, really, to a sane man\u2026\u201d (Chapter VII) Throughout the novel he reinforces his own standards of sanity. When at last describing his experiment to the horrified Prendick, he explains his reasons for embarking upon it in the same language: \u201cThen I am a religious man, Prendick, as every sane man must be.\u201d (Chapter XIV) He co-opts the twin standards of Victorian behavior \u2013 religion and normality \u2013 to defend his indefensible experiments, and does it in such a way that Prendick has no choice but to go along with it. Indeed, Prendick\u2019s own experience on the island erodes his certainty that Moreau\u2019s practices are evil: \u201cI lost faith in the sanity of the world when I saw it suffering the painful disorder of this island.\u201d (Chapter XVI) Eventually he adjusts to life on the island, such that he barely notices the gradual disintegration of Moreau\u2019s creatures. Moreau\u2019s twisted world becomes Prendick\u2019s normality.<\/p>\n
By the time Prendick is able to leave the island, Moreau\u2019s warped kind of sanity is still dogging his steps. Prendick says that his \u201cdiscoverers thought [him] a madman,\u201d and that he \u201chad to act with the utmost circumspection to save [himself] from the suspicion of insanity.\u201d (Chapter XXII) In the end, Prendick, no longer \u201ca reasonable creature, but only an animal tormented with some strange disorder in its brain,\u201d (Chapter XXII) is so changed by Moreau\u2019s world that he cannot live in his own \u2013 not because they are too different, but because they are too similar<\/em>. Moreau\u2019s last achievement is this redefinition of sanity: bringing the ordinary world closer and closer to his island, so that the one seems just as insane as the other.<\/p>\n [Apologies for the citations – I am using the Project Gutenberg text, which has no page numbers.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To a modern reader Dr. Moreau is the quintessential mad scientist \u2013 he has a hidden laboratory, he has sinister henchmen, and his experiments are evil and grotesque. But to simply dismiss Moreau as a madman would be to ignore the manner in which the doctor both adheres to his own vision of sanity, and … Continue reading \u201cI too must have undergone strange changes\u201d \u2013 Sanity in The Island of Dr. Moreau<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1581,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}