For many humans, it is easy to feel sympathy for others who are in a difficult situation if you have been a similar place before. We can relate to their feelings, and we understand the pain that they are going through. Emotions are something that only the human brain can truly comprehend. However, sometimes it is difficult to fathom the idea that animals and other creatures on earth feel pain similar to what humans feel. In the short novel The Island of Doctor Moreau written by H. G. Wells, that emotion is clearly felt by the Beast folk of the island.
The pain felt by the creatures and felt by the narrator, Prendick, shows how similarly humans and animals experience emotion. This is because Dr. Moreau changes the natural way of life with his vivisection experiments, causing the animals to have more human-like emotions and characteristics. Humans do not feel sympathy for the suffering of other life forms until they display emotions similar to that of humans, because humans do not have any other connections to them. The Island of Dr. Moreau has a mysterious tone throughout much of the novel.
The audience is left in the dark about what exactly the doctor was doing for his experiment. It is very clear that during his time on the island, Prendick feels uncomfortable and frightened by the Beast folk of the island, mainly because he does not understand what or who they are. He is concerned with only his own life, and it seems as though he would not feel badly if he had to hurt one of the beasts in order to protect himself. There is one point where Prendick is approached by a “grotesque half-bestial creature” (27), and he “regretted that [he] was unarmed” (28).
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However, when he discovers that the creatures of the island have characteristics similar to his own, he begins to empathize with them. After Prendick hears the yells of the puma that resemble the cry of a human man, he makes a visible effort to seek comfort from the creatures, especially since he seems to be more frightened of Montgomery and Moreau. When seeking shelter and food, he convinces himself “I might perhaps find them friendly, find some handle in their minds to take hold of. I did not know yet how far they were from the human heritage I ascribed to them” (40).
Because the creatures displayed human-like characteristics, such as the way that they cried and the fact that they could speak, Prendick began to feel sympathy for the suffering that they were going through. “It is when suffering finds a voice and set our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us” (37).
From the moment that Prendick arrives on the island, the audience learns that Dr. Moreau is “itching to get to work again” (20) and that his “little establishment contains a secret or so” (21).
There are talks of scientific experiments, and Prendick knows that the name Moreau is familiar to him. Moreau has established a set of Laws on the island that all of the creatures must follow, which in essence teaches them the way to behave that he believes to be morally correct. Moreau even states that, “Very much indeed of what we call moral education is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct” (76).
Perversion is the alteration of something from its natural course, which is entirely what Dr.
Moreau’s process of vivisection is all about. He wanted to create a new era of science to change the world, and by teaching the creatures on the island how to behave, he is doing exactly that. He believes that it is the role of a leader (in this case, himself) to teach others how to behave and to teach them about morals. There is the possibility that Moreau had wanted to teach his newly created Beasts the Law of the Land, which are his own personal morals, in an effort to lessen the differences between humans and animals.
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H.G. Wells is known by many as the father of modern science fiction. Herbert George Wells was born in 1866 in Bromley, Kentucky. As a child Wells broke his leg and while recovering from the injury, spent most of his time reading all the books he could find. He attended the Normal School of Science in London on a full Scholarship. At this school, he teamed up with Thomas H.Huxley, who taught him a ...
The role of pain and suffering is quite prevalent through out the course of the novel. While Dr. Moreau is trying to start a new era of scientific findings, he was also closing the gap of emotional differences between animals and humans. It is difficult to attempt to relate to anyone when they haven’t felt the same sort of emotions, which is why Prendick initially is frightened of the Beast folk. Humans will feel no sympathy for other forms of life, unless they are able to relate to them.
