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Jan 18, 2018audrey321 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
The Island of Dr. Moreau is one of my favorite classics. This was the third novel I have read by H.G. Wells, but I would never be able to pick a favorite. Wells is a great author who creates unique, intriguing plotlines. I like the fact that he writes challenging text but still leaves out unnecessary words, descriptions, and explanations. He can describe an image in just half a page while using an entertaining style of writing. When he once described a group of strange beasts, all he had to say was that “at any rate they were an amazingly ugly gang, and over the heads of them, under the forward lug, peered the black face of the man whose eyes were luminous in the dark” (Wells 30). The words Wells uses are particularly entertaining and he avoids redundancy. A flaw of his works is a lack of characters who really stand out. The Island of Dr. Moreau has brief chapters which I love and a certain mood that attracts me. His books are also fairly short which is more enjoyable and less time consuming for me. This novel deals largely with moral rules and ethical issues. The story presents one ethical character, Prendick, who abides by every rule, views vivisection as pure evil, avoids hurting people, and even abstains from alcohol. This character is put in high contrast with Moreau, a remorseless man who doesn’t abide by normal rules, practices vivisection, and doesn’t mind hurting people. The reader is forced to think about ideas concerning morality like whether or not the beasts are a moral abomination or whether the ethical issue of Moreau’s vivisection really matters. (Spoilers!) The story begins with the main character, Prendick, being stranded at sea, starving and desperate. He is rescued by a man named Montgomery on a ship with a few strange creatures on board. The man is friendly, but the island that the ship arrives at seems dangerous. It doesn’t take long for Prendick to discover that the other man on the island, Moreau, is a vivisectionist who experiments on animals to create the odd, half human creatures that live on the island. Of course, Prendick is terrified by this information, and a few chapters are spent hiding from Moreau and desperately avoiding him. Moreau eventually finds him, calms him down, and brings him back to their huts. He gives Prendick a lengthy explanation about his “triumphs of vivisection” (87), and it becomes clear that Moreau isn’t sane when he goes on to describe sympathetic pain as “a thing [he] used to suffer from years ago” (93). Still, Prendick eventually realizes that Moreau has no reason to hurt him and stays in the huts with the two men. The only danger to him now is the beast folk, who begin to gradually become less civil. They start to break the law that Moreau holds them to and dead prey animals begin to show up on the island. Soon they are out of control and savage. They kill Moreau in an attempt for anarchy and Prendick tries to take charge after that, but it’s not long before they kill Montgomery too. This event leaves Prendick alone on the island with savage beast people, but they mostly just avoid each other. He eventually does make it back home after a boat washes up on shore. Obviously, he isn’t able to be the same again. He ends up skittish around people and scarred for life, but he’s lucky to be alive. The elaborate chain of events in this story is suspenseful, intriguing, unique, and a little bizarre.