The Island of Doctor Moreau

Prendick’s arrival on the island saves him from the dangers of the open ocean but exposes him to other perils he does not yet understand. He is now extremely isolated and wholly reliant on Moreau and, to a lesser degree, Montgomery. The literary trope of an individual arriving in an unknown and remote place where they are reliant on a sinister figure has roots in Gothic and horror traditions and contributes to the building of suspense in this section of the novel. The sinister and foreboding mood is also heightened by Moreau’s explicit admission of secrecy: “our little establishment here contains a secret or so, is a kind of Blue-Beard’s chamber, in fact” (32). The allusion to Bluebeard (a fairy tale villain who repeatedly murdered his brides and hid their bodies) implies that Moreau is concealing something grotesque, foreshadowing that Prendick will eventually begin uncovering the secrets that are intended to be concealed from him.

Moreau is a somewhat famous individual, and Prendick begins piecing together information about his situation because he recalls having read news stories about him. The revelation that Moreau was effectively banished from England due to the cruelty of his experiments on animals reflects the anti-vivisection movement of the latter 19th century. During this time, activists challenged the practice of conducting scientific and medical experiments on living animals, and this public pressure eventually led to the passing of the Cruelty to Animals Act in Britain in 1876.

The characterization of Moreau as a rogue scientist who chose to reject society rather than abandon his research develops a trope that is somewhat common in science fiction: The figure of the “mad scientist” who ignores ethical considerations in pursuit of scientific innovation, often resulting in dangerous consequences. The eponymous figure of Doctor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel is the classic example of this character type, but Wells’s character would go on to become another notorious example of someone who recklessly pursues scientific ambitions without proper safeguards. Prendick connects Moreau’s isolation as someone who “was unmarried, and had indeed nothing but his own interests to consider” (34) to his defiant pursuit of his intellectual goals, implying that Moreau becomes selfishly obsessed with his individualistic ambitions rather than contributing to a more collective social good.

Prendick’s morally ambiguous position is revealed in his reaction to Moreau’s history: He recalls somewhat dismissively that “the doctor was simply howled out of the country” (34), implying that the public outcry against Moreau was rooted in collective emotion rather than reason. Prendick also concludes that “there was nothing so horrible in vivisection” (35), aligning himself with Moreau’s allegiance to science and experimentation, even at the cost of suffering. Prendick’s attitude here raises one of the novel’s core themes: The Illusory Nature of Reason and Civilization. Prendick believes that his willingness to countenance suffering in the name of science marks him as a reasonable man and aligns him with civilization and progress. However, events will soon lead him to question that certainty. While Prendick is initially unbothered by the likelihood that Moreau is conducting painful experiments on living animals, he finds the evidence of this suffering more disquieting. When the puma’s pained cries are audible, both Prendick and Montgomery become increasingly distressed: Montgomery drinks heavily to cope with his “state of ill-concealed irritation” (38) and Prendick eventually resorts to “stopping my ears with my fingers” (38). Prendick muses that “had I known such pain was in the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe […] I could have stood it well enough” (38), exploring some of the ethical questions that Moreau’s experiments raise. In theory, Prendick can condone the suffering that might be required, but he is uncomfortable with the unavoidable evidence of this pain. His comment reflects Wells’s project of social critique: it is implied that many people, like Prendick, simply ignore suffering unless they are forced to confront it or see it occurring right in front of them.

Prendick also maintains a hierarchy in which the suffering of some types of individuals is much more distressing to him than others. He finds the pain of the puma unpleasant but is unwilling to intervene. However, Prendick is horrified when he mistakenly believes that Moreau is experimenting on human beings. Significantly, his fear is increased because he begins to wonder if Moreau might be planning to experiment on him: “the clouded horror of my mind condensed into a vivid realization of my danger” (51). Prendick’s moral hierarchy is constructed with those who are least like him (the puma) at the bottom, those somewhat like him (Moreau’s hypothetical human victims) in the middle, and himself at the top. Because he functions as a kind of “everyman” who represents the viewpoint, prejudices, and perspectives of a typical individual, Prendick exemplifies how human beings can tolerate atrocities occurring to those whom they view as inferior or inhuman, especially when those events seem remote from their own concerns.