The Island of Doctor Moreau

The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel written by the English novelist H.G. Wells. Wells’s experiences researching and teaching biology inform the novel, as do contemporary debates about the practice of vivisection (the practice of performing experiments on live animals). By describing frightening and fantastical events, Wells explores themes of power structures, violence, and what it means to be human.

This guide references the 2005 Penguin Classics edition.

Content Warning: The novel and the guide reference alcohol addiction, insensitive treatment of substance addiction, cruelty to animals, and considerations of suicide.

Plot Summary

In February 1877, an Englishman named Edward Prendick is stranded at sea after his ship sinks. He is rescued and taken aboard another ship, which is transporting a variety of animals to an isolated Pacific island. A man named Montgomery tends to Prendick but reveals very little about his past or why he lives on a remote island. Prendick also finds Montgomery’s personal servant, M’ling, to be uncanny and strange. When the ship arrives at the island, Montgomery, M’ling, and the cargo of animals disembark, welcomed by a man named Moreau; Prendick joins them on the island.

Prendick quickly senses that there is something strange and sinister about the island, which is populated by servants with bizarre appearances. He learns that Moreau performs vivisection: experiments conducted upon live animals, often causing them great pain. Moreau was driven out of England by opposition to this practice and came to the island to continue his work. Montgomery assists Moreau by supplying him with animals, among other tasks. Prendick is not bothered by the vivisection, but he increasingly suspects that something more sinister is going on. Eventually, Prendick learns that Moreau modifies animals by giving them more human characteristics, creating hybrid beings known as Beast People. Many Beast People live on the island; Moreau maintains control over them by imposing a strict set of rules known as “the Law” and imposing painful corporal punishment on anyone who disobeys.

Evidence gradually emerges that the Beast People are breaking some of the taboos and displaying increasingly animalistic behavior. One day, a puma breaks free while Moreau is experimenting on it. Moreau pursues it into the woods, and later Montgomery and Prendick find that the puma has killed Moreau. They are both afraid that without Moreau’s influence, the Beast People will begin to rebel against them. Montgomery copes with this fear by drinking; he eventually gets into a drunken conflict with the Beast People and is killed by one of them. Prendick lives alone with the Beast People for almost a year, watching them gradually revert to an animalistic state.

In January 1878, a small boat containing the bodies of two men washes ashore on the island. Prendick takes the boat and uses it to sail off, where he is eventually picked up by a ship. After initially trying to explain what happened to him, he becomes worried that people will think he has lost touch with reality. He then claims he doesn’t remember anything about what happened after his ship sank. He goes back to England but can no longer live in the crowded metropolis of London because he is afraid that the people around him might actually be Beast People. He finds greater peace once he goes to live an isolated life in the country.