The Island of Doctor Moreau
Encyclopedia
The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 written by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...

. It is told from the point of view of a man named Edward Prendick who is shipwrecked, rescued by a passing boat, and then left at the ship's destination by the crew along with the ship's cargo of exotic animals. The island is home to a scientist named Doctor Moreau, who is conducting bizarre and cruel experiments on the animals he has imported, attempting to create sentient beings out of animals. The novel deals with numerous philosophical themes, including the need to take responsibility for the things we create, the question of what makes a man a man, the cruelty of nature and of man, and the dangers of trying to control nature.

The novel

When the novel was written in 1896, European society was absorbed with concerns about degeneration
Degeneration
The idea of degeneration had significant influence on science, art and politics from the 1850s to the 1950s. The social theory developed consequently from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution...

, and Britain's scientific community was engulfed by debates on animal vivisection
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...

. Interest groups were even formed to tackle the issue: the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection
The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection is a British animal protection and advocacy group that campaigns for the abolition of all animal experiments...

 was formed two years after the publication of the novel.

It begins with the protagonist, an upper class gentleman named Edward Prendick, finding himself shipwrecked in the ocean. A passing ship takes him aboard, and a man named Montgomery revives him. He explains to Prendick that they are bound for an unnamed island where he works, and that the animals aboard the ship are traveling with him. Prendick also meets a grotesque, bestial native named M'ling, who appears to be Montgomery's manservant.

When they arrive on the island, however, both the captain of the ship and Montgomery refuse to take Prendick with them, stranding him between the ship and the island. The crew pushes him back into the lifeboat from which they rescued him. When they see that the ship truly intends to abandon him, the islanders take pity and end up coming back for him. When they arrive at their island, Montgomery introduces Prendick to Doctor Moreau, a cold and precise man who conducts research on the island. After unloading the animals from the boat, they decide to house Prendick in an outer room of the enclosure in which they live. Prendick is exceedingly curious about what exactly Moreau researches on the island, especially after he locks the inner part of the enclosure without explaining why. Prendick suddenly remembers that he has heard of Moreau and that he had been an eminent physiologist in London before a journalist exposed his gruesome experiments in vivisection
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...

.

The next day, Moreau begins working on a puma, and its anguished cries drive Prendick out into the jungle. As he wanders, he comes upon a group of people who seem human but have an unmistakable resemblance to hogs
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...

. As he walks back to the enclosure, he suddenly realizes he is being followed. He panics and flees, and, in a desperate attempt at defense, he manages to stun his attacker, a monstrous hybrid of animal and man. When he returns to the enclosure and questions Montgomery, Montgomery refuses to be open with him. After failing to get an explanation, Prendick finally gives in and takes a sleeping draught
Hypnotic
Hypnotic drugs are a class of psychoactives whose primary function is to induce sleep and to be used in the treatment of insomnia and in surgical anesthesia...

.

Prendick awakes the next morning with the previous night's activities fresh in his mind. Seeing that the inner door has been left unlocked, he walks in to find a humanoid form lying in bandages on the table before he is ejected by a shocked and angry Moreau. He believes that Moreau has been vivisecting humans and that he is the next test subject. He flees into the jungle, where he meets an Ape
Ape
Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...

 Man who takes him to a colony of similarly half-human/half-animal creatures. The leader, a large gray thing named the Sayer of the Law, has him recite a strange litany called the Law that involves prohibitions against bestial behavior and praise for Moreau.

Suddenly, Moreau bursts into the colony, and Prendick escapes out the back into the jungle. He makes for the ocean, where he plans to drown himself rather than allow Moreau to experiment on him. Moreau and Montgomery confront him, however, and Moreau explains that the creatures, the Beast Folk, are animals that he has vivisected to resemble humans. Prendick goes back to the enclosure, where Moreau explains to him that he has been on the island for eleven years now and has been striving to make a complete transformation from animal to human. Apparently, his only reason for the pain he inflicts is scientific curiosity. Prendick accepts the explanation as it is and begins life on the island.

One day, as he and Montgomery are walking around the island, they come across a half-eaten rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...

. Eating flesh and tasting blood is one of the strongest prohibitions in the Law, so Montgomery and Moreau become very worried. Moreau calls an assembly of the Beast Men. He identifies the Leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...

 Man (the same one that chased Prendick the first time he wandered into the jungle) as the transgressor. The Leopard Man flees, but when the group corners him in some undergrowth, Prendick takes pity and shoots him, sparing him a return to the operating table in Moreau's "House of Pain".

Prendick also believes that although the Leopard Man was seen breaking several laws such as drinking water bent down like an animal, chasing men (Prendick) and running on all fours, the Leopard Man was not solely responsible for the deaths of the rabbits, but it was also the Hyena
Hyena
Hyenas or Hyaenas are the animals of the family Hyaenidae of suborder feliforms of the Carnivora. It is the fourth smallest biological family in the Carnivora , and one of the smallest in the mammalia...

-Swine
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...

, the other most dangerous beast man on the island. He stays quiet about what he knows. Moreau is furious that Prendick killed the Leopard Man but can do nothing about the situation.

As time passes, Prendick begins to deaden himself to the grotesqueness of the Beast Folk. One day, however, he is shaken out of this stagnation when the puma rips free of its restraints and escapes from the lab. Moreau pursues it, but the two end up killing each other. Montgomery falls apart and, having gotten himself quite drunk, decides to share his alcohol with the Beast Men. Prendick tries to stop him, but Montgomery threatens violence and leaves the enclosure alone with bottle in hand. While Prendick waits for Montgomery to return, he resolves to leave the island. Later in the night, Prendick hears a commotion outside; he rushes out and sees that Montgomery has been involved in some scuffle with the Beast Folk. He dies in front of Prendick, who is now the last remaining human on the island.

After the death, Prendick hears a thud behind him and sees that the enclosure is on fire. He realizes that he had knocked over a lamp while rushing out to find Montgomery and that he has no chance of saving any of the provisions stored in the enclosure. Prendick then realizes that during the night Montgomery had destroyed the only boats on the island.

Because of his paralyzing despair at losing his escape routes, Prendick misses his opportunity to claim Moreau's vacant throne on the island,and instead settles for living with the Beast Folk. He lives on the island for 10 months after the deaths of Moreau and Montgomery, during which he attempts to build and provision a raft with which he intends to leave the island. As the time goes by, the Beast Folk increasingly revert to their original animal instincts, beginning to hunt the island's rabbits, returning to walking on all fours, and leaving their shared living areas for the wild.

They also gradually cease to follow Prendick's instructions and eventually kill his faithful companion, a Beast Man created from a dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

. Luckily for him, eventually, a boat that carries two corpses drifts onto the beach. (It is heavily implied that these are the bodies of the captain of the ship that picked Prendick up, as well as a sailor, because it had been revealed in the introduction that said ship sank, and one of the corpses had ginger hair.) Prendick dumps the bodies, gets supplies, and leaves the next morning.

He is picked up by a ship only three days later, but when he tells his story, the crew thinks that he is mad. To prevent himself from being declared insane, he pretends to have no memory of the year he spent between the first shipwreck and his final rescue. When he gets back to England, however, he finds that he is rigidly uncomfortable around other humans because he has an irrational suspicion that they are all Beast Folk in danger of having a sudden and violent reversion to animalism. He contents himself with solitude and the study of chemistry and astronomy and finds peace above in the heavenly bodies.

Main characters

  • Edward Prendick - The novel's narrator and protagonist
  • Doctor Moreau - A scandal-hit vivisectionist who has relocated to a remote island to pursue his experiments
  • Montgomery - Moreau's assistant and Prendick's savior from drowning. He is an alcoholic, and is sympathetic towards the Beast Folk
  • Beast Folk - Animals upon which Moreau has experimented in order to give them human traits. They include:
    • M'ling - Montgomery's dog
      Dog
      The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

      -based servant.
    • Sayer of the Law - An unidentified Beast Man who is the keeper of the Law (a code of "non-bestial" behaviour by which Moreau insists the Beast Folk abide).
    • Leopard Man - A leopard
      Leopard
      The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...

      -based rebel who, in killing and eating a rabbit
      Rabbit
      Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...

      , breaks the Law.
    • Hyena-Swine - A carnivorous
      Carnivore
      A carnivore meaning 'meat eater' is an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue, whether through predation or scavenging...

       hybrid of hyena
      Hyena
      Hyenas or Hyaenas are the animals of the family Hyaenidae of suborder feliforms of the Carnivora. It is the fourth smallest biological family in the Carnivora , and one of the smallest in the mammalia...

       and pig
      Pig
      A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...

       who becomes Prendick's enemy in the wake of Moreau's death.
    • Dog-Man - A Beast Man created from a St. Bernard
      St. Bernard (dog)
      The St. Bernard is a breed of very large working dog from the Italian and Swiss Alps, originally bred for rescue. The breed has become famous through tales of alpine rescues, as well as for its large size.-Appearance:The St. Bernard is a large dog...

      , who, near the end of the book, is Prendick's faithful companion.
    • Ape-Man - A monkey
      Monkey
      A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...

       or ape
      Ape
      Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...

       creature that considers himself equal to Prendick, who refers to himself and Prendick 'Five Men' because they both have five fingers on each hand which is uncommon among the Beast Folk; the first Beast Man, other than M'ling, that Prendick speaks to. He has what he refers to as 'Big Thinks' which, on his return to England, Prendick similarizes to a priest's sermon at the pulpit.

Adaptations

The novel has been made into a movie on five occasions:
  • Ile d'Epouvante (The Island of Terror) was a 1913 French silent film (also spelled L'Ile d'Epouvante and Isle d'epouvante). The 23-minute two-reeler film was directed by Joe Hamman in 1911 and then released in 1913. By late 1913, the film had been picked up by U.S. distributor George Kleine and renamed The Island of Terror for its release in Chicago.
  • Island of Lost Souls (1933 film)
    Island of Lost Souls (1933 film)
    Island of Lost Souls is an American science fiction horror film starring Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, Bela Lugosi and Kathleen Burke as The Panther Woman. Produced by Paramount Pictures in 1933 from a script co-written by science fiction legend Philip Wylie, the movie was the...

     with Charles Laughton
    Charles Laughton
    Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and director.-Early life and career:...

     and Béla Lugosi
    Béla Lugosi
    Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...

    .
  • Terror Is a Man (1959 film) with Francis Lederer
    Francis Lederer
    Francis Lederer was a film and stage actor with a successful career, first in Europe, then in the United States.-Europe:...

    , Greta Thyssen, and Richard Derr
    Richard Derr
    Richard Derr was an American film and television actor.-Selected filmography:*Sex Hygiene *Joan of Arc *When Worlds Collide *Something to Live For *The Invisible Avenger...

    . This Filipino film, directed by Gerardo de Leon, was reissued in the United States in 1964 as Blood Creature. Leon partnered with Eddie Romero to direct and release two follow-up films in 1968: Brides of Blood and Mad Doctor of Blood Island. All three were produced by Lynn-Romero Productions.
  • The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977 film)
    The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977 film)
    The Island of Dr. Moreau is the second movie version of the H. G. Wells science fiction novel about a scientist who attempts to convert animals into people, starring Burt Lancaster, Michael York, Barbara Carrera, and Richard Basehart...

     with Burt Lancaster
    Burt Lancaster
    Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...

     and Michael York
    Michael York (actor)
    Michael York, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:York was born in Fulmer, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the son of Florence Edith May , a musician; and Joseph Gwynne Johnson, a Llandovery born Welsh ex-Royal Artillery British Army officer and executive with Marks and Spencer department stores...

    . This film was turned into a novel
    Novelization
    A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...

     by Joseph Silva and published by Ace.
  • The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996 film)
    The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996 film)
    The Island of Dr. Moreau is a 1996 science fiction horror film, the third major movie version of the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau about a scientist who attempts to convert animals into people...

     with Marlon Brando
    Marlon Brando
    Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...

     and Val Kilmer
    Val Kilmer
    Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...

    .


An amateur adaptation of Wells' novel, The Island of Doctor Agor (1971 film)
The Island of Doctor Agor
The Island of Doctor Agor is a 1971 American short animated film written and directed by then-thirteen-year-old Tim Burton, who also starred in the title role of Doctor Agor. The short is one of Burton's first animated films, and was adapted by Burton from the H.G. Wells story The Island of Doctor...

, was made in 1971 by a then-13-year-old Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...

. The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

 also devoted a segment of their Treehouse of Horror XIII
Treehouse of Horror XIII
"Treehouse of Horror XIII" is the first episode of The Simpsons fourteenth season, as well as the thirteenth Halloween episode. The episode aired on November 3, 2002, three days after Halloween...

as a parody. Instead of transforming animals into men as Dr. Moreau does, Dr. Hibbert instead transforms the residents of Springfield into animals.

Further reading

  • Canadas, Ivan. “Going Wilde: Prendick, Montgomery and Late-Victorian Homosexuality in The Island of Doctor Moreau.” JELL: Journal of the English Language and Literature Association of Korea, 56.3 (June 2010): 461-485.

  • Hoad, Neville. “Cosmetic Surgeons of the Social: Darwin, Freud, and Wells and the Limits of Sympathy on The Island of Dr. Moreau”, in: Compassion: The Culture and Politics of an Emotion, Ed. Lauren Berlant. London & New York: Routledge, 2004. 187-217.

  • Reed, John R., “The Vanity of Law in The Island of Doctor Moreau”, in: H. G. Wells under Revision: Proceedings of the International H. G. Wells Symposium: London, July 1986, Ed. Patrick Parrinder & Christopher Rolfe. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna UP / London and Toronto: Associated UPs, 1990. 134-44.

  • Wells, H. G. The Island of Dr. Moreau, Ed. Steven Palmé. Dover Thrift Editions. New York: Dover Publications, 1996.

  • Wells, H. G. The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Critical Text of the 1896 London First Edition, with Introduction and Appendices, Ed. Leon Stover. The Annotated H.G. Wells, 2. Jefferson, N.C., and London: McFarland, 1996.

External links


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