{"id":72,"date":"2016-02-10T02:29:12","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T02:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=72"},"modified":"2018-09-02T22:06:28","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T22:06:28","slug":"euphemisms-of-horror-sustained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2016\/02\/10\/euphemisms-of-horror-sustained\/","title":{"rendered":"Euphemisms of Horror Sustained"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Island of Dr. Moreau<\/span><\/i> deals with intensely gruesome subjects – not only in the physical monstrosity of the Beast People, with their \u201cstrangely distorted talons\u201d which evoke a \u201cquivering disgust\u201d (44), but in Moreau\u2019s morally repulsive experiments full of sadism and wanton cruelty. Yet as the full depth of the island\u2019s gruesomeness becomes clear, I began to find the language surrounding it increasingly strange. The language the characters use is often far less graphic than one might expect, as we begin to understand what exactly they\u2019re referring to; the terms used to explain the actual horrors occurring on the island are often vague. Even after Prendick has come to a full understanding of the island\u2019s horrors, the euphemisms persist. This seems counterproductive; in a book so full of shock and revulsion, why bother trying to maintain language that downplays them?<\/span><\/p>\n

Early on in the novel, Moreau tells Prendick, \u201c\u2018This is a biological station – of a sort\u2019\u201d (Wells 19). There is a good deal more going on in Moreau\u2019s island than merely biology, but Prendick doesn\u2019t know this yet; it\u2019s a handy lie for Moreau, easily palatable for a fellow scientist. Shortly after, Moreau changes his tone: \u201c\u2018Our little establishment here contains a secret or so, is a kind of Bluebeard\u2019s Chamber, in fact. Nothing very dreadful really – to a sane man\u2019\u201d (21). While \u201cbiological station\u201d sounds relatively simple, even tame, \u201cBluebeard\u2019s Chamber\u201d is far more objectionable. Moreau could have called his island a biological station if he was experimenting on different types of grass. His allusion to \u201cBluebeard\u2019s Chamber,\u201d on the other hand, holds a deadly and deceptive conflict. Bluebeard is a character in a fairy tale – removed from reality, ostensibly harmless, figuring only in a child\u2019s imagination. This fairy tale quality makes the allusion itself seem harmless, placing Moreau\u2019s island in an innocuous context. But Bluebeard was a renowned wife-murderer, and his chamber was kept a secret because it was full of dead bodies. The apparent safety of Moreau\u2019s answer is undermined by the nature of his euphemism. Although this tendency seems natural now, when Prendick is new to the island, Prendick himself maintains the euphemisms surrounding the worst of the island\u2019s horrors, as if he can\u2019t bear to name them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prendick and Moreau both use the term \u201cvivisection\u201d most often when referring to Moreau\u2019s work, and although the clinical ring of the word seems to excuse it from being a euphemism, I think it\u2019s another link in a chain of sustained euphemisms for something so horrible neither character nor writer can \u00a0address it openly. \u201cVivisection\u201d means \u201cliving dissection\u201d – yet it sounds much cleaner cloaked in Latin. Prendick never asks himself, \u201cCan Moreau really be cutting apart live animals in order to make them more like humans? Can he dissect live humans?\u201d Instead, he says, \u201cCould the vivisection of men be possible?\u201d (37). While vivisection is ostensibly the most applicable scientific term, it is also used <\/span>exclusively<\/span><\/i>; there are no other more graphic (and realistic) terms applied to Moreau\u2019s research. I think that this repetition, to the exclusion of any other term, reflects a fear of the actual process, even after we understand it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter 19 is titled \u201cMontgomery\u2019s \u2018Bank Holiday.\u2019\u201d This holiday consists of Montgomery losing his hold on his sanity and eventually being killed by the Beast People. The \u201cbank holiday\u201d is a new euphemism, used perhaps for dramatic purpose (to withhold the details of the next chapter) but I think more importantly for the way it reveals Prendick\u2019s discomfort with the events around him. To Prendick, and perhaps to Moreau also, the horror of the \u201cscience\u201d happening on the island is so strong that they can\u2019t bring themselves to name it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It makes some sense that Wells would try to conceal some atrocities; published under Victoria in an era of strict social decorum, the novel could have been shunned had it been judged too appalling. Yet we see atrocities aplenty. Instead, the euphemisms reveal such a depth of disgust and fear for the island\u2019s events that Prendick (and Wells) could not bear to name them. Instead of calling horror by its own name, Wells constantly conceals and obscures it; the euphemisms he uses for the island\u2019s horrors indicate a discomfort deeper than simple revulsion. I think that these euphemisms reflect a social and moral disgust with Moreau\u2019s science, and perhaps science as a whole, that neither Prendick nor Wells can fully articulate.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Island of Dr. Moreau deals with intensely gruesome subjects – not only in the physical monstrosity of the Beast People, with their \u201cstrangely distorted talons\u201d which evoke a \u201cquivering disgust\u201d (44), but in Moreau\u2019s morally repulsive experiments full of sadism and wanton cruelty. Yet as the full depth of the island\u2019s gruesomeness becomes clear, … Continue reading Euphemisms of Horror Sustained<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2924,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","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\/72","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\/2924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}