41 pages • 1 hour read
H. G. WellsThe Island of Doctor Moreau
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1896A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Violence and Fear as Strategies to Maintain Control
On the island, Moreau largely governs the Beast People by using violence and fear. However, the development of the plot reveals that this method of maintaining control is tenuous and unlikely to establish long-term stability. Moreau’s authority over the Beast People is somewhat impressive given that they are more numerous and more physically powerful; they could easily injure or kill him, but they remain submissive for most of the plot because they fear Moreau’s authority. Moreau maintains power by cultivating an aura of mystery and invincibility; Prendick observes that “Moreau, after animalizing these men, had infected their dwarfed brains with a kind of deification of himself” (59). While at this point Prendick misunderstands the nature of the Beast People (thinking Moreau has imposed animal characteristics onto humans), he accurately describes the fear and awe with which they regard Moreau. The Beast People even see it as Moreau’s justifiable right to impose physical punishment onto them: the Ape Man explains, “I am burned, branded in the hand. He is great, he is good” (60). The physical suffering that Moreau inflicts on the Beast People helps to secure their deference and obedience, but he is only able to administer these punishments because they accept that they need to abide by the Law and deserve to be punished when they breach it.
By showing how Moreau relies on violence and fear to govern the Beast People, Wells embeds a critique of tyrannical systems into his novel. He further develops this critique by implying that systems based on fear and control are likely doomed to fail. Very early on, clues like the presence of dead rabbits (implying that the Beast People are hunting and consuming flesh) hint that systems of power are eroding. When Montgomery introduces Prendick as another godlike authority on par with himself and Moreau, the Beast People react with skepticism because they have already seen Prendick display vulnerability and fear. Moreau’s authority depends on never allowing his subjects to glimpse his vulnerability. This form of authority is inherently precarious. The puma’s escape reveals that Moreau never had full control over his experiments; both he and Montgomery end up being killed by Moreau’s creations as they rebel and revert to their animal instincts. Once both Moreau and Montgomery are dead, the Beast People regress back into an increasingly bestial state: Because the power that governed them was based on fear and control, it disappeared as soon as Moreau and Montgomery were no longer there to enforce it. Presumably, once Prendick leaves the island, the Beast People return to an entirely feral and ungoverned state. The shallow and fear-based authority that Moreau wielded is shown to ultimately be ineffectual.
The Illusory Nature of Reason and Civilization
The Island of Doctor Moreau is sometimes categorized as a work of horror; the novel is frightening because it explores how human civilization and human reason may be illusions. Even before Prendick understands what the Beast People are, he feels uncomfortable with the uncanny feeling they evoke. It is also telling that Prendick initially misunderstands the nature of the Beast People, imagining that they began as humans and were given animal traits (when it is actually the other way around). The existence of the Beast People hints that the line between humans and animals is actually very thin, while Prendick’s error reveals that movement across that line occurs in both directions. Moreau explains that “a pig may be educated. The mental structure is even less determinate than the bodily” (72), further disrupting the idea that humans possess innate traits (such as language and reason) differentiating them from animals. Moreau’s experiments suggest that it is possible for animals to easily adopt some of the most defining traits of humanity, while various human characters show that they can become animalistic.
Moreau insists that human beings are distinguished from animals by their use of reason; in his experiments, he strives to eradicate what he views as base and animalistic impulses and emotions. However, Moreau himself acts irrationally by recklessly pursuing his dangerous research and ignoring warning signs that he may be losing his control over the Beast People. Moreau also acts with great cruelty by inflicting pain on sentient beings but does not seem to see these actions as contradicting his humanity. Likewise, Montgomery routinely consumes large quantities of alcohol, dulling his senses and reducing himself to a more animalistic state. Outside of the isolated island where the events of the plot unfold, events like war, violence, abuse, and injustice call into serious question the idea that humans are fundamentally different from or better than animals. When the Beast People stubbornly devolve back into an animal state (especially after Moreau’s death), this process implies that it is virtually impossible to eradicate instincts: They can merely be suppressed through strictures like religion and social customs. Most pointedly, when Prendick returns to England at the end of the novel, he can’t help noticing that the men and women he sees around him bear a striking resemblance to the Beast People. Once individuals like Montgomery and Prendick have seen that the distinction between animals and humans is in fact arbitrary, they are unable to go back to the presumption that humans are truly different.
Isolation and Loss of Identity
Isolation is a distinctive feature of the remote island on which Moreau lives and works. Although Montgomery, Moreau, and Prendick form a kind of community, the isolation in which they live exacerbates the deterioration of ethical and social standards. Almost as soon as Prendick recalls what he knows of Moreau’s history, he concludes that Moreau was driven to recklessly pursue his research because he lacked relationships and social connection: “he was unmarried, and had indeed nothing but his own interests to consider” (34). Likewise, for reasons that are never clear, Montgomery has been driven out of society for some mysterious transgression, lamenting that he is “an outcast from civilization […] because --eleven years ago—I lost my head for ten minutes on a foggy night” (19).
Once he is on the island, Prendick’s only option for society consists of these two enigmatic and potentially sinister men. Within this small and isolated world, moral standards begin to decay because the three men are cut off from the wider world. As an outsider, Prendick functions as a kind of voice of conscience, one who can articulate the moral horrors occurring on the island. During cultural debates about vivisection during the Victorian era, critics often focused less on the suffering being inflicted on animals, and more on the corrosive moral effect these actions had on the humans who undertook them. In this framework, the victims of vivisection were its practitioners, who were in danger of becoming morally corrupted and losing touch with a central aspect of their humanity. Isolated from society, Moreau and Montgomery serve as a test case for this theory—with no fear of social judgment, they quickly become inured to cruelty and learn to mute the voice of conscience, Montgomery through fatalism (and copious drinking) and Moreau through fervent belief in the value of his scientific inquiry.
Ironically, while the Beast People are portrayed as more primitive and even brutal than the human residents of the island, they are more successful at forming a community and establishing rules and norms. These norms may be repressive, but they do indicate a sense of social cohesion. By contrast, the isolation that surrounds Montgomery and Moreau, and which they leverage to maintain their hold on power, ends up corrupting Prendick to the point that he can no longer function as a member of society. While Prendick ostensibly escapes from the island, he ends up unable to reintegrate into English society, and can only find some measure of peace once he has “withdrawn [himself] from the confusion of cities and multitudes” (131).
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By H. G. Wells
