Book Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau

"And I know that they are neither wholly animal nor holy man, but an unstable combination of both." - H.G. Wells

I read H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau to see if it will work for a 10th grade unit on fear and Gothic literature.

I don't ordinarily think of a sun-drenched island as a Gothic setting, but in a sense it is exotic. And it is certainly creepy! It definitely is probably more in the genre of sci-fi or even body horror, but its emphasis on the limits of science and the responsibilities of creation has lots in common with Frankenstein.

I won't say too much more because I don't want to give spoilers, but I will say that this book was readable and fun. I finished in a few hours, and I really enjoyed it. Of course, I am an X-Files fan so I love a good mad scientist story.

Wells's theme, that the line between animal and human is thin and easily crossed, could not be more on the nose, particularly at the end of the book, but it was so well-written that I really didn't mind being beaten over the head with it.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

********Addendum, 8/1/17 - CONTAINS SPOILERS!**********

Even on my first reading I realized that Dr. Moreau's animal/human hybrids function as stand-ins for the human race. Wells is pretty straightforward about that, and even has his narrator observe that looking at the hybrids is like seeing "the whole balance of human life in miniature, the whole interplay of instinct, reason, and fate in its simplest form." 

However, after reflecting a bit more on the book, I now have a deeper understanding of Well's ideas. I think that much like the narrator sees the hybrids, Wells sees the human race as a species constantly at war with itself.

Humanity is a mixture of the animal and the spiritual; the book of Genesis describes the creation of Adam as entirely earthly (literally, he is created from the dust) and also spiritual (he is created in the image of God). Over the years, many different terms have been coined to try to describe this internal conflict, such as "nature vs. nurture" or "duty vs. desire", but the essential idea is that man's animal self and its earthly desires (food, sex, pleasure) is constantly battling his constructed self and its spiritual desires (holiness, godliness, morality, meaning).

H.G. Wells nicely describes this never-ending battle in the scene where the hybrids recite Moreau's laws in a kind of religious fervor. Wells says that the Law "battled in their minds with the deep-seated, ever-rebellious cravings of their animal natures. This Law they were perpetually repeating, I found, and- perpetually breaking." So although the hybrids desperately want to obey the law, their animal natures won't allow it.

In Paul's letter to the Romans, he describes the condition of humanity in much the same terms: 

"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!"

- NIV Bible, Romans 7:21-24

Like Wells, Paul describes the battle between the law and sin. (In chapter 8 of Romans, Paul goes on to exclusively name the "earthly nature" and its desires as the source of sin.) 

Notice too that Paul describes the wretchedness of this condition, and so too, does Wells, saying: 

 "Before [their hybridization by Moreau], they had been beasts, their instincts fitly adapted to their surrounds. Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never dies, fretted by a law they could not understand; their mock-human existence, begun in agony, was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau--and for what? It was the wantonness of it that stirred me."

Because Moreau's hybrids can be neither fully animal, nor fully human, they are forever in limbo, unable to commit to either existence. Wells is saying that humanity is in the same sorry condition, caught in an endless tug-of-war between the earthly and the spiritual, with a desire to please God and an equally strong desire to please the animal nature. How then can the human animal ever experience peace? Wells uses words like "fret" and "agony"  and "struggle" to describe this constant state of guilt and dissonance, and even accuses a God who would create such a situation as wanton.

I see this book as a really effective critique of religion and its expectations.