Dr. Moreau

I was interested in The Island of Dr. Moreau because I wanted to get into the science fiction horror genre. However, I wasn't scared by it, which I think is just the era it was written in. Perhaps if I was a reader back in that day and age, I would have been at the edge of my seat, but as someone living in the 21st century where the horror genre is just everywhere in media, I was unimpressed. The idea itself was definitely freaky, like having human animal chimeras is gross and creepy, I think just the way it was written didn't really allow for the suspense and thriller vibe that I was expecting. (Perhaps that was the point, however. Perhaps what Wells wanted to do was not to create a Stephen King, not that he would have known who that is, kind of fear, but a more eerie fear. A fear that can't be turned away from because it exists in the real world which makes it all the more horrifying.) That's not to say it wasn't a good book. I actually liked it, along with its message, or at least what I think is its message. Wells was critiquing his society at the time, with their increasing interest in evolution and controlling biology. I think with his book he wanted to say how humans are just animals themselves and vulnerable to the laws of evolution just like any other creature on this earth. I like to imagine him saying to his readers "Did you learn nothing from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? The entire book is just the consequence of someone trying to play God, not a go ahead!"
I question whether the reader as a human is supposed to be Prendick, or the Beast Folk. Prendick is a logical man of science, who's just caught in this whole situation. Critics have said that Prendick is actually a Christ type of character to Dr. Moreau's God, but I think differently. I think perhaps Wells wanted the audience to read Prendick, grow sympathetic with him, and agree with his choices and see themselves in him. Prendick isn't a bad guy, and all of what he did, killing the Puma man and taking the over the island after Dr. Moreau's death, is understandable. By isolating himself at the end of the book, and he does this because he has seen the true nature of mankind, the reader pities Prendick. This book is definitely a cautionary tale for the Victorian readers, and it definitely worked. It worked so well that Wells was freaked himself out. But even though we as a readers are seeing this all take place in Prendick's perspective, I think that Prendick is supposed to show us an outside point of view of who we really are, the Beast Folk.
First there's the religion of the land, or the Law as it's called, and their God, Dr. Moreau. Without Moreau, the people of the land completely fall apart and back into their animal ways. They didn't know how to survive without him as he was their guidance. Even though he hated them and treated them awfully, the beast folk knew no differently so without him they all just fell apart. That's humans right there. We provide ourselves with laws and rules laid down by our gods and without them we'd descend into chaos. Another aspect is just the evolutionary one. People are still animals, even though we create society and laws, people still break those laws. I think Wells is trying to speak about the true nature of mankind. To him, mankind is still equal to that of animals, no matter we tell ourselves.
Wells was also trying to talk about how luck and life works. In the beginning, Prendick perhaps thinks himself to be lucky as the sole survivor of a ship wreck. His luck is even heightened when the other ship picks him up and a kind man aboard treats him back to health. However, that all backfires on him when he ends up on the island with no way to get back to a mainland. Everything falls apart for Prendick, to him realizing that this island is actually not all that it seems, and running into forest and Beast Folk. Suddenly he's thrown into this world that he absolutely does not want to be a part of and has to take charge, like after Moreau's death and continuing to enforce the Law. At the end, he does get his resolution, by having a boat wash up ashore and letting him finally leave the island all behind. With this, Well's was talking about how bad things happen to good people. It's also seen with Montgomery. He was a good person, and it's seen in how he takes care of Prendick out of his own choice, but ended up saddled with someone like Dr. Moreau. However, Wells isn't saying that people don't get their just desserts. Dr. Moreau definitely gets his with his death at the end after torturing all those animals (perhaps Wells was warning similar scientists about what was coming to them) and at the very end with the boat washing up for Prendick many speculate that the dead bodies found in it were actually those of the captain and sailor of the boat that kicked Prendick out. But Prendick, a regular English guy ends up with all this knowledge that he did not want nor need and has to isolate himself from civilization because he can no longer trust humanity. The world works in mysterious ways.
Overall, it's a good book. It raised ethical questions that, at the time it was written, needed to be asked, and it still remains relevant to this day. This book was, at least I think it was, a big cautionary tale towards eugenics. Dr. Moreau's experiments all backfired on him and proved that humans can't control their evolutionary destiny. We just can't. We, like all other species, are just pawns to the bigger picture. Also that we shouldn't play god. Ever. It will never work out for us.