The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man, ends up as a guest of the infamous scientist Doctor Moreau on a lonely Noble island. Edward slowly becomes aware of his danger and the extreme nature of the Doctor’s research after being disturbed by the cries of animals in anguish and his encounters with half-bestial monsters.
The Island of Doctor Moreau is undoubtedly a disturbing book, drenched in agony and loathing and filled with bizarre and frequently intolerable imagery of torture and body mutilation. It is also a serious and well-informed philosophical engagement with Wells’s era, with its climate of scientific growth and openness, as well as its concerns over the moral character of scientific discoveries and their consequences for religion.
The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
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Once again, Wells’ biological understanding of the world provides the foundation of this novel. It’s all about a villainous doctor who wants to vivisect animals so they can progress evolutionarily. Instead, a degeneration takes place, and the “beast folk” slowly degenerate into more savage forms after reaching a certain level of basic humanity. It concludes with an incredible description of a barbaric civilization. When Edward Prendick finally leaves the island and returns to London, he thinks that everyone there is a bunch of venal, uncivilized animals. He runs through the streets in terror, expecting his fellow creatures to rip him apart.
The science of biological regression serves as its foundation, yet the writing style is exaggerated Gothic and immensely dramatic. It may be one of the precursors to the more graphic “body horror” subgenre. The idea that the animal is merely concealed beneath the surface is explored, along with the horrifying malleability of the human form.
The main character, Prendick, perishes in a shipwreck. His suffering begins there and never stops. He is saved by Montgomery, a depressed man with secrets, after almost dying. In his frail condition, the ship’s tiny universe resembles a nightmare on the water filled with animals bound for destruction. When he finds himself abandoned on the enigmatic doctor Moreau’s island, the nightmare intensifies. It’s as if he never really gets to regain consciousness or that he has just passed on and is now on an island where everything seems destined to go wrong. The horrors left us alone, with nowhere to run, to ourselves in the end.
