{"id":68,"date":"2016-02-10T03:04:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T03:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=68"},"modified":"2018-09-02T22:06:28","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T22:06:28","slug":"man-vs-machine-moreaus-attempt-to-perfect-mankind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2016\/02\/10\/man-vs-machine-moreaus-attempt-to-perfect-mankind\/","title":{"rendered":"Man vs. Machine – Moreau’s Attempt to “Perfect” Mankind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading through\u00a0The Longman Anthology<\/em>, I was struck by a quote found under the section titled\u00a0“The Age of Energy and Invention,” which illustrates Karl Marx’s view of the obsession with science and innovation\u00a0which marked the Victorian era:<\/p>\n

\u201c[Marx] saw that through the hoopla of the marketplace, products had acquired a \u2018mystical character\u2019 and \u2018theological niceties\u2019 of their own. Yet Marx did not regard commodities as proof of God\u2019s existence; instead, he argued that they functioned as deities in their own right. (\u2026) Looking around at the wonders of British industry, Marx decided that people had become, finally, less important that things.\u201d (1055)<\/p>\n

I found this quote to be crucial when discussing\u00a0The Island of Dr. Moreau<\/em>, because the idea of\u00a0humanity as\u00a0something imperfect, something that should (and can<\/em> be, through\u00a0the eyes of Dr. Moreau) perfected through the modes of science and technology, acts as\u00a0the foundation of Moreau’s ideology.\u00a0One can trace this idea specifically to Moreau’s theory on the nature of pain and pleasure, which he reveals while talking to Prendick about his “praxis”:\u00a0\u201cThe capacity for pain is not needed in the muscle, and it is not placed there (\u2026). Pain is simply our intrinsic medical adviser to warn us and stimulate us. (\u2026) I never yet heard of a useless thing that was not ground out of existence by evolution sooner or later. Did you? And pain gets needless.\u201d (55)<\/p>\n

Moreau views pain as an unnecessary trait, and something which he believes can, ultimately, be conquered. He continues, saying:\u00a0\u201cThis store men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them, the mark of the beast from which they came. Pain! Pain and pleasure \u2013 they are for us, only so long as we wriggle in the dust\u2026\u201d (55)<\/p>\n

Pain and pleasure are two characteristics\u00a0that are unmistakably human, and without the capacity for those two things, there is little that distances humans from machines – and yet, it is exactly those two things that Moreau wants to eliminate. Moreau sees pain and pleasure as weakness, and he wishes to conquer that weakness just as one would fix a bug on a computer, or replace a rusty screw. In this regard, Moreau embodies Marx’s\u00a0notion that people were becoming less important than things, and that humanity\u00a0was becoming\u00a0increasingly replaced by science. The obsession with invention and the endless striving towards an ever-greater perfection can be summed up in a quote towards the end of\u00a0The Island of Dr. Moreau<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cA blind fate, a vast pitiless mechanism, seemed to cut and shape the fabric of existence, and I, Moreau by his passion for research, Montgomery by his passion for drink, the Beast People, with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels.\u201d (74)<\/p>\n

To me, this “vast pitiless mechanism” is representative of the\u00a0obsession with science and the attempt to shape and perfect nature, to “cut and shape the fabric of existence,”\u00a0that I have been trying to outline in this blog post – it is the central conflict, and the engine that gives power to the novel as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading through\u00a0The Longman Anthology, I was struck by a quote found under the section titled\u00a0“The Age of Energy and Invention,” which illustrates Karl Marx’s view of the obsession with science and innovation\u00a0which marked the Victorian era: \u201c[Marx] saw that through the hoopla of the marketplace, products had acquired a \u2018mystical character\u2019 and \u2018theological niceties\u2019 of … Continue reading Man vs. Machine – Moreau’s Attempt to “Perfect” Mankind<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2923,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","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\/68","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\/2923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}