Reviewing H.G. Wells' "The Island of Dr. Moreau"

One of the great things about science fiction is that it allows us to view our world in allegorical form. The best science fiction literature accomplishes this without heavy handed preaching or cheesy melodrama. For an example, allow me to humbly present: H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau.

The plot opens with the narrator, Edward Prendick, getting marooned in a lifeboat and eventually coming ashore a nearly deserted island. I say nearly deserted without fear of spoiling the plot, since the name of the story gives away the fact that a Dr. Moreau lives on that island, along with a few other men, his right-hand being an oaf named Montgomery. At first Prendick is treated like an honored guest. Dr. Moreau has been on his island some time, and therefore is curious about the outside world. Prendick, however, is curious more about the strange noises and mysterious behavior of his hosts. But ignorance is bliss, and he soon wishes he hadn’t been rescued at all.  



The great secret of the island is the Beast Folk: Dr. Moreau has experimented upon animals and tried by every means necessary—natural and unnatural—to graft humanity over their instincts.  In toying with nature this way, Dr. Moreau has developed a god complex. In teaching them to be human, however, he has also taught them to think for themselves, to desire freedom. And their animal natures don’t take kindly to being trapped and “domesticated,” either. The Beast Folk rise up against their human masters, killing Moreau and Montgomery.  Prendick is left alone with animals who have the brutality of beasts with the cunning intellect of humans. Slowly these creatures begin to regress into their former states. 

The Island of Dr. Moreau brings up, in its own horrifying and haunting way, some good questions about humanity. For instance, are humans any different from animals? What sets us apart? 

Wells doesn’t decisively answer the first question. Certainly the scientists on the island did not act humanely when they experimented and tortured innocent animals. In their needless violence they acted little better than animals themselves. Yet Prendick says at the end of his narrative that

“There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope.” 

So humans must, he insists, have something more than animal in their basic nature.

So what is that, what aspect of humanity sets us apart from other life? This answer can also be inferred from the text. The Beast Folk are confined by a Law which is imposed upon them by Moreau. As their human constructs degrade, this Law is followed less and less to the letter. In imparting humanity to these creatures, Moreau made sure to ingrain a sense of morality in their conduct. Perhaps he only did it to control them, but a conscience is something that humans have—whether they heed or ignore it—that animals do not. A predator like a hyena may be excused its violence because it is in its nature to hunt and kill.  A human, however, is responsible for his or her actions, because we know better and have the intellectual ability to think of alternative modes of conduct. 

The moral compass is what keeps the Beast Folk in line until their humanity starts to degrade. But what about Dr. Moreau and his men?  They ignored their consciences in the name of science in order to bring the Beast Folk into being in the first place. Thus I would say that the real Beasts of this story—like in Frankenstein—are not the animals, but the men who created them. 

Recommended Reading Age: High School (at least)

Parental Notes: Some swearing, plenty of violence and gore, and general thematic creepiness

Availability: This novel is available rather cheaply on its own, or can be found in many collections, often paired with The Invisible Man. 

Adaptations: I have seen two adaptations to film, the 1977 version starring Burt Lancaster as Moreau and Michael York as Prendick, and the 1996 version starring Marlon Brando as Moreau  and Val Kilmer as Montgomery. Both adaptations have changed the plot (because what’s a movie without a girl love interest who turns out to be a cat?), but the thematic creepiness level is the same as in the book.