The Island of Doctor Moreau
| The Island of Doctor Moreau | |
First edition cover |
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| Author | H. G. Wells |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Heinemann |
| Publication date | 1896 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 209 p. |
| ISBN | NA |
The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells, addressing ideas of society and community, human nature and identity, playing God and Darwinism. The mythic figure of the chimera, a human/animal hybrid, is brought into the scientific age.
Contents |
The novel
When the novel was written in the late 19th century, Britain's scientific community was engulfed by debates on animal vivisection. Interest groups were even formed to tackle the issue: the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection was formed two years after the publication of the novel.
Summary
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 doctor 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 Doctor Montgomery refuse to take Prendick with either of them, stranding him between the ship and the island. The crew pushes him back into the lifeboat from which they rescued him, but seeing that the ship truly intends to abandon him, the islanders take pity and end up coming back for him. Montgomery introduces him 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.
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. As he walks back to the enclosure, he suddenly realizes he is being followed. He panics and flees, and in a desperate attempt of 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 draft.
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 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 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, 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. 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 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 Moreau's operating table. Moreau is furious 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. Later in the night, Prendick hears a commotion outside; he rushes out, and sees that Montgomery appears to have 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. He does not attempt to claim Moreau's vacant throne on the island, but he instead settles for living with the Beast Folk as he attempts to build and provision a raft with which he intends to leave the island. Luckily for him, eventually a ship inhabited by two corpses drifts onto the beach. 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 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 sudden and violent reversion to animalism. He contents himself with solitude and the study of chemistry and astronomy, finding peace above in the heavenly bodies.
Adaptations
The novel has been made into a movie on three occasions:
- Island of Lost Souls (1933 film) with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi.
- The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977 film) with Burt Lancaster and Michael York.
- This was turned into a novel by Joseph Silva and published by Ace.
- The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996 film) with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer
References in other works
A popular story that has influenced many works, mainly about mad scientists creating chimeras. The following are some of the works which are closely related to Moreau and his story:
Novels, comics, and printed works
- Moreau's Other Island, 1980, a novel by Brian W. Aldiss featuring a doctor who has been nicknamed "Moreau".
- Adolfo Bioy Casares's novel The Invention of Morel, the account of a fugitive who lands on a desert island where an unscrupulous scientist has conducted his work.
- The Moreau series of novels by S. Andrew Swann deals with human/animal hybrids named "moreaus".
- Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me about Who We Are by Roger Fouts with Stephen Tukel Mills Chapter 6, The Island of Dr. Lemmon, page 124 compares Dr. William B. Lemmon to Moreau.
- Dr. Moreau is featured in Alan Moore's comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II. In the comic book, Moreau's first name is given as Alphonse. He appears to have survived his ordeal from the original book — though he bears some scars from the wounds described in Wells' narrative — and gone on to experiment, alone in the English countryside, creating many characters from classic fiction, including Puss in Boots, Rupert Bear, Toad of Toad Hall and Peter Rabbit. He references Gustave Moreau as his nephew. Edward Prendrick also makes an appearance as an insane outsider who is permanently monitored by Moreau creations. The virus which destroyed the Martians in The War of the Worlds was also one of Moreau's creations (though this was covered up by the British government at the time).
- The High Evolutionary, a Marvel comic villain, is distinctly similar to Dr. Moreau. He has the power to evolve living beings, and use it to evolve animals into humanoid bestial species called the New Men.
- JLA: The Island of Dr. Moreau was an Elseworlds comic produced in 2002 by DC Comics, portraying the Justice League as various human/animal hybrids.
- The Isle of Dr. Steve is a plot arc in the online webcomic Sluggy Freelance that has to do with a character named Oasis. Much speculation exists as to what she is actually a hybrid of.
- Dr. Franklin's Island by Ann Halam is loosely based on this H.G. Wells novel.
Films, TV, and screen-based works
- The Island of Dr. Moreau, a 1977 film starring Burt Lancaster and Michael York.
- The Island of Dr. Moreau, a 1996 film starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer.
- The Twilight People (1973), a similar film, with Pam Grier in the role of the panther woman.
- Island of Mutations (1979) starring Barbara Bach featured a scientist who transforms the native inhabitants of a remote island into amphibious deep-sea diving creatures.
- In the British comedy series The Mighty Boosh, evil zookeeper Bembridge creates human/animal hybrid mutants.
- In The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XIII", one of three featured short stories is titled The Island of Dr. Hibbert. Here, the transformation process has been reversed; Dr Hibbert does not attempt to transform animals into humans, but rather, humans into animals.
- In the Sliders episode "This Slide of Paradise" (1997), the main characters visit a compound where Dr. Vargas (played by Michael York) engages in Dr. Moreau-style experiments producing animal/human chimeras. York himself starred in the 1977 movie version of the novel.
- The Japanese animated movie Blue Submarine No. 6 featured a Dr. Zorndyke who created hybrids on an isolated island and, when discovered and condemned by humans, killed billions of people by flooding most of the world's food-producing lowlands. His creations, mainly sea-hybrids, treated him as a father and waged constant war against the surviving humans.
- An Episode of Batman: The Animated Series entitled "Tyger, Tyger" (1992) is loosely based on the events of the novel where Doctor Emile Dorian experiments with cat DNA which leads to the creation of Tygrus and the splicing of Selina Kyle.
- Dr. Mephisto parodies Moreau as a genetic engineer in South Park. He lives in a mansion on a hill and is ever-accompanied by the small rat-human from the 1996 movie.
Computer and role-playing games
- FarCry also revolves around a scientist creating chimeric creatures on an archipelago.
- The Dungeons & Dragons game setting Ravenloft includes Frantisek Markov, the darklord of Markovia, who is responsible for the creation of creatures called Broken Ones and has the ability to shape-shift into any form of animal but must maintain his human head and is cursed in that he can never again have a humanoid body.
- The role-playing game d20 Modern has rules for genetically engineered animal-men hybrids called moreaus, which come in several forms based in different animal species, including feline, dolphin, and bear moreau.
- In the video game Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, the villain Dr. M is based on Doctor Moreau, and even shares the affinity for splicing animals.
- In the computer game Impossible Creatures, Dr. Eric Chanikov, in a secluded island, invents the Sigma Technology, which allows two animals to be fused into a new creation.
- The game Vivisector by ActionFourms is based on The Island of Doctor Moreau.
- In the post-apocalyptic computer role-playing game Fallout, the villain known as "The Master" was a doctor who was expelled by his community and is now sending mutants (of his creation) into the world. His name is Dr. Richard Grey but he changed it from Dr. Richard Moreau upon his expulsion. [1]
Music
- The electronic group Infected Mushroom refers to Dr. Moreau in one of their songs, "Over Mode".
- The book inspired the name of hiphop group House of Pain. Several songs and certain versions of their debut album contain words from the book.
- The band Oingo Boingo's song "No Spill Blood" on their album Good for Your Soul is based on the book and the 1933 movie. It makes reference to Moreau's "House of Pain" and the punishments for breaking Moreau's laws.
- The Devo song Jocko Homo takes its line "Are we not men?" indirectly from the book through the 1933 movie, and before that from Shylock's soliloquy in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
- Rodan, a rapper from the New York based hip hop group Monsta Island Czars, refers to himself as Dr. Moreau sometimes and references Dr. Moreau in his songs.
- The Italian neoclassical band Ataraxia featured a song on their album Arcana Eco entitled "The Island of Doctor Moreau".
- The music video for Diana Ross's single Eaten Alive is inspired by the novel.
Other
- In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, there is a character named Doctor Moro, whose name, character, and appearance are based on Dr. Moreau.
- The Art of H. G. Wells, by Ricardo Garijo, is a 2006 trading card adaptation of three stories by Wells, the second of which is The Island of Dr Moreau.[1].
- John Cusack's character in the 2008 film War, Inc. references feeling "like a refugee from the Island of Dr. Moreau" during one of the first scenes.
External links
- The Island of Doctor Moreau at Project Gutenberg
- Reading of The Island of Doctor Moreau
- Text of the novel
- A draft of the 1996 films screenplay, dated April 26th, 1994
- The Island of Lost Souls (1933) at the Internet Movie Database
- The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) at the Internet Movie Database
- The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) at the Internet Movie Database
- Jurassic Park: Horizontal Evolution by Harrison Mujica-Jenkins at latephilosophers.com
- Jörg, Daniele (2003). "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—Dr. Moreau Goes to Hollywood". Public Understanding of Science 12 (3): 297–305. doi:. http://pus.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/297. Compares the three adaptations of the novel, focuses on the scientists and the science in the film, considering the year of the production and what was known about genes and cells at the time.
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