path: root/markley/09_dr_moreau

INTRODUCTION
Lady Vain lost at sea. Uncle recovered 11 months later with a strange
tale. He's found on a lifeboat from a schooner called Ipecacuanha. This
corresponds with reality, but his Uncle has missing memory and landed on
an impossible island.

CHAPTER ONE (In the dingey of the `Lady Vain.')

The crash is well known, and seven men were recovered. Four weren't.

Boaters: Helmar, the narrator, and a short sturdy man---name unknown.
(the fourth man died jumping off the boat)
Food and water are very limited. Water runs out on the fourth day, and
in delirium by the sixth, the men agree to cannibalize one. The unnamed
man loses the gambit, and in a fight, both he and Helmar drown.
The narrator is picked up two days later in a fogged state.

CHAPTER TWO (The man who was going nowhere)

Edward is recovered by the ship and cared for by the "medical man
aboard."
He is given some scarlet substance that strengthens him.
The Ipecacuanha is a trader from "Arica and Callao."
Arm injected. Has been unconscious for 30hrs.
Edward studied Natural History.
Montgomery, the medicine man, studied Biology.
There is a sound of dogs above.
Montgomery nurses Edward back with food, and lends some clothes.
The ship is headed to Hawaii but has to stop at Montgomery's island
first (no name).

CHAPTER THREE (The Strange Face)

There is a bizarre, misshapen, crooked man with an equally unnerving and
deformed face blocking the way.
Montgomery sends him off, `forward.'
He might be the "unseen dogs growling," given that he has the appearance
of a muscle. Edward has deja vu about the face.
Actually, there's a filthy deck, covered with food scraps from caged and
tied-up animals on the deck.
There's a singular other person on the deck, at the wheel.
The black-faced man returns trailing a red-haired man who smacks him in
the back.
The red-haired man is the drunk captain (and owner, apparently).
The black man is Montgomery's passenger. The captain calls Montgomery,
coming to the defense of theh black man, "Blasted Sawbones" repeatedly.
It sounds like the animals are for the island? Or maybe from it.
The captain threatens to cut out the insides of the black man.
Edward prevents a fight between the captain and Montgomery (by telling
the captain to "shut up")

CHAPTER FOUR (At the Schooner's Rail)

Montgomery and Edward are talking in the starlight.
Montgomery is "reticent about his purpose" with the creatures and his
destination
Montgomery asks about London, where Edward is from "in a tone of
half-painful reminiscence." "He spoke like a man who had loved his life
there, and had been suddenly and irrevocably cut off from it."
`[He] lost [his] head for ten minutes on a foggy night.'
Edward sees the attendant has red eyes, striking childhood fears.

CHAPTER FIVE (The Man Who Had Nowhere To Go)

The captain tells Edward ("Mister Shut-Up") to head overboard "with your
friends."
Edward tries appealing to Montgomery and Montgomery's companion (I think
there's a new one), both of whom shake their heads and say "can't have
you."
They're unboarding the ship, and Edward is in the hands of fate.
He protests by laying down on the deck, weak from hunger and a lack of
"blood-corpuscles." The captain and his sailors drag him onto the Lady
Vain, and set him adrift---no oars, half-full of water.

CHAPTER SIX (The Evil-Looking Boatmen)

Montgomery's launch returns to pick up Edward, who is drifting towards
the island. The launch is "heavily laden."
I was right---there is a new companion, white-haired.
Montgomery fastens the Lady Vain to his vessel.
They arrive at the island.
I'm not exactly sure if these are racist depictions, but they certainly
seem like it. There are three brutish, gangly men wrapped in white
papery substance and wearing turbans. The coast of the island has some
buildings, a beach, and a ridge.
I wonder what the importance of the "jacket and trousers of blue serge"
is.
They land the boat and begin unloading, the bandaged men apparently
doing so "clumsily."
The white-haired man takes in Edward as a guest.
"This is a biological station---of a sort."
They are populating the island with animals, apparently wanting the
rabbits for meat.

CHAPTER SEVEN (The Locked Door)

They have some secret that the want to keep from Edward.
There is a stone enclosure that Edward is asked not to enter, made of
coral and pumice, with the llama and some packages stored outside.
"the elaborate locking-up of the place even while it was still under his
eye, struck me as peculiar."
The white-haired man lodges Edward in an apartment, plainly furnished,
with some books and an inner door locked "for fear of accidents."
The name Moreau (called by Montgomery) is also "unaccountably familiar"
to Edward.
Edward sees out the window one of the bandaged? men, endowed with
"uncanny voices."
Montgomery's attendant with red eyes "had pointed ears, covered with a
fine brown fur!"

The Moreau Horrors is what reminded Edward
    Moreau, psychologist known for his imagination and brutal directness
    A chilling pamphlet, written by a journalist wanting to expose
        Moreau, closes Moreau's career. Corresponds with a mutilated dog
        escaping Moreau's house.
    Moreau leaves London, to continue research.
Edward is convinced it's the same man. "A notorious vivisector."
Why are these books primarily detective stories?
    I mean, this isn't *really* a detective story. It's a mystery.
Probably relevant but not this chapter: Edward doesn't drink
    "Abstinent since birth."

CHAPTER EIGHT (The Crying of the Puma)

Montgomery wishes he'd been an abstainer. "It's no use locking the door
after the steed is stolen."
Since Edward knows Moreau, Montgomery plans to tell more of the mystery.
Edward also asks about the attendant, which Montgomery (probably lying)
claims not to have noticed, saying his hair hid the ears.
Montgomery says he had just become used to his attendant.
The puma is howling in the background.
It drives Edward mad enough to, in a rage and pity, flee to the forest.

CHAPTER NINE (The Thing in the Forest)

"grotesque ugliness was an invariable character of these islanders."
Edward sees a man drink from a stream on all fours. The area is
otherwise tranquil and still.
The islander is wearing blue fabric.
He comes across a recently killed (still warm) rabbit that he saw
drinking water earlier. Its head is torn off.
Running away in fear, Edward finds another group of islanders.
Three, a woman and two men (white, unlike the copper-skin of the other)
each wearing but a scarlet cloth around a large felled tree in a meadow.
The islanders all have short legs, I think. "Lipless mouths."
Another emerald flash in an islander's eyes.
Edward runs because he believes he is being followed, as night falls.
He has some evidence that there is a silhouetted figure near him---the
Thing.
Edward dehumanizes the Thing, the "animal-man" "on all-fours," and using
a prepared rock in a sling, kills it. He can't bring himself to look
closer at the fallen body.

CHAPTER TEN (The Crying of the Man)

He returns to his apartment, meeting Montgomery there. Montgomery calls
them "curiosities."
Why does Montgomery keep giving Prendick brandy? He's expressed his
abstinence severely.
The puma yelps, again.
Montgomery refuses to answer questions about the "curiosities," delaying
concerns with "enough for one day."
Montgomery gives him "a small measure containing a dark liquid."
    Is Edward to become one of the islanders?
The door is left open when Edward wakes up. He hears the yelp (he says
of a man, but I think it's a deerhound), and rushes in. Moreau throws
Edward out as if he were a small child.

CHAPTER ELEVEN (The Hunting of the Man)

Was that rabbit foreshadowing?
So Edward really does think Moreau was vivisecting a person.
I wonder what the tabboo is? What will that reading say? I assumed
vivisection was an operation on a person, but it does make sense that it
would be an animal. Hmm
So Moreau did something with blood transfusion.
Because Edward is convinced of Moreau's bad intentions, he runs out
before (in his paranoia) Montgomery locks him into the apartment.
Edward runs out into the woods and hides in a bush. He hears a dog yip
and heads to a stream to get some drink.
Off-topic
    I watched the first couple of seasons of Dark, and the main
    character Jonas keeps wanting to make the world different, but he's
    already seen his older self do things---which makes me curious: why
    doesn't he just kill himself to "stop the loop." I imagined
    self-preservation, but I think this explains it:
    "an odd wish to see the whole adventure out, a queer, impersonal,
    spectacular interest in myself, restrained me."
A Beast Person talking in broken English approaches Edward.
    They "[lack] sometimes even three digits."
    He can swing from the vines.
    And has access to food! (At "man's huts." Is this Moreau's?)
He goes through a dark, underground tunnel, calling "Home!"

CHAPTER TWELVE (The Sayers of the Law)

The People live in a ravine, with a smell from being unkept.
Forgot to mention: Edward has a nailed stick.
This is a primitive culture, ranked by the number of fingers per hand.
Probably does correspond to the "closeness" to humanity.
    This maybe has some roots in Social Darwinism, but given the
    critical view of Moreau, definitely not supportive.
The Law is a mantra of civilization that the Ape-man makes Edward repeat
- not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
- not to suck up Drink..
- not to eat Fish or Flesh.. (interesting: vegetarianism)
- not to claw the bark of trees..
- not to chase other Men..
- and more, apparently
And a religious "His" that attributes nature.
There is more jabber about punishment and apparently these people desire
to break many tenets of this law.
Edward thinks Moreau managed to get them to deify him.

Moreau and Montgomery find Edward. He, again, runs, but this time Moreau
recruits the People to attack/restrain him. They are slow to respond,
giving him enough time to escape, but he does need to maim one of the
People with his nail on a stick.
He runs and falls into a ravine. Moreau located him with one of the dogs
(only?).
There is a sulphuric stream at the bottom (heated by lava?)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (A Parley)

We finally come to a confrontation between Moreau and Edward.
He threatens to drown himself.
Moreau, somewhat disinterestedly, wonders why Edward would fear torture.
M'ling is Montgomery's attendant.
Edward tries to foment revolt of the Beast People against Moreau---tries
to get them to be okay with killing Moreau.
Moreau says they were animals and are now men.
They do present a pretty compelling case that they don't intend to
endanger Edward: they had every opportunity and didn't take them,
foremost. They are turning the puma into a man.
Edward makes Moreau and Montgomery set down their revolvers and
raise their hands at a distance in order to prove their intent.
I can't tell exactly if this is just solidified rock or actual lava on
this island.
"I never before saw an animal trying to think."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (Doctor Moreau Explains)

Vivisection is live surgery. Moreau, in a fantastical extension of
standard procedures---moving skin around, transplanting teeth,
hypnotism---purports to be able to transmute the animals into bodily
forms similar to humans and educate them out of their old instincts.
Edward asks Moreau to justify the pain inflicted in vivisection
    Moreau calls Prendick a "materialist" for being driven at all by
    visual, audible, or personal pain, animalistic even.
Prendick is immediately unconvinced, but Moreau continues---he claims
that pain is unnecessary in nerves and flesh, a mere evolutionary trick.
Furthermore, Moreau does this as a matter of scientific inquiry: "[he]
asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer, and got a
fresh question."
Finally, Moreau admits that he doesn't worry about ethics.
Moreau believes himself to be a failure. His first couple of creations
were pained and stupid, but he eventually made a gorilla into a slow
man. Now, he hopes the puma to be finally an intelligent creature.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (Concerning the Beast Folk)

Moreau's hypnotism of the Beast Folk is apparently steadfast---although
the Law (including prohibitions from tasting blood) is broken.
The Beast that followed Edward was the Leopard-man.
M'ling doesn't live with the other Beast Folk but in a kennel.
Edward is becoming accustomed to the Beast Folk as people---the beast
still shows sometimes but if he doesn't pay too much attention.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (How the Beast Folk Taste Blood)

The Thing isn't the leopard-man, I don't think.
There is a social commentary thing here. The whole "humanity in
miniature" thing is meant to be an analogy to modernity, I think.

Montgomery and Edward, on a visit to the lava flow that heats the
spring, see a torn apart rabbit. This violates the Law, and Montgomery
organizes the Beast People to see to punishment. The offender, the
Leopard-man, runs and Edward and Montgomery chase it successfully.
Edward, reaching it first, shoots it out of mercy. He is aware of the
profound aimlessness of the island.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (A Catastrophe)

There is a revolt. The puma escapes and Moreau chases after him.
Montgomery chases after Moreau with M'ling at his side. They encounter
several groups of blood-stained Beast Folk. They retreat to the house.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (The Finding of Moreau)

Some "He" is thought to be dead by the Beast Folk, but Edward turns it
into a Jesus-like "He watches from the heavens" story. (is the "He"
Moreau?). He does this because they wonder if the Law falters.
Moreau's dead body is being dragged back by a strong beast. Edward
shoots and kills the beast (puma, I think). His revolver is lost.
The ravine is (was? during the catastrophe) empty.
Edward and Montgomery kill everything in the labatory.

CHAPTER NINETEEN (Montgomery's `Bank Holiday')

Edward wants to leave the island. Montgomery likes the phrase "silly
ass." Montgomery is scared, so he drinks, which is his bank holiday.
Edward organizes provisions for the dingey and Moreau's funeral pyre.
Montgomery sort of organizes a bonfire with the Beast Folk. Two beasts,
M'ling, and Montgomery are gravely injured. All die but Montgomery whom
has burnt both boats in the bonfire, and caused Edward to burn down the
thatch supply hut with a lantern. Montgomery dies.

CHAPTER TWENTY (Alone with the Beast Folk)

Edward is approached by three of the beast folk, and in a bid to save
himself, propels belief in the Law. He tells that their deaths were
because they disobeyed the Law and portrays himself as a master with the
whip.
He has them give water burials to the bodies.
He sends them off and begins to realize he has nowhere safe to sleep.
"The stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again." - Moreau
He wants to kill the Hyena-swine.
Since he failed to take the place of Moreau, he becomes "a leader among
his fellows."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (The Reversion of the Beast Folk)

There is a dog-like creature who wants to serve Prendick. Note that the
holiday was only eight weeks into Edward's stay.
Edward asks the dog-man to attack the `sinner' (hyena) because the
dog-man still believes in the Law.
Edward manages to convince the Beast Folk that Moreau and the House of
Pain will return.
Slowly, they become less and less human.
They become beastlike but don't return to specific forms---Moreau mixed
multiple creatures when creating them.
The process is continuous; they lose language and form, basically
violating the Law piece by piece, in combination with physical change.
Edward makes a raft, which falls apart when he drags it to the sea.
The Saint Bernard creature is killed by the hyena-swine, and the sloth,
when Edward is sulking on the beach, retrieves Edward. Edward finally
gets to kill the hyena-swine.
He continues his attempts to escape, primarily with his unhandy
raft-building---he nailed together pieces of brushwood. He reached a
final obstacle of storing water, but he sees a sail.
It's the sail of a small, dirty tug. Its crew of two are dead.
Edward takes the boat, fills its keg with water, gathers fruit, rabbits.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (The Man Alone)

He was recovered on that boat after three days, having eaten and drank
scarcely.
People wouldn't believe his story, believing the solitude to have driven
him mad, so Edward pretended to recall nothing.
Edward is deeply traumatized, fearing that the animalistic tendencies in
his fellow men and women will come out, on a larger scale than with the
islanders. He wants to be away from his fellow men because they scare
him---on transit, in the street, everywhere.
"This is a mood"
Edward is solitary, and still a man of science, investigating chemistry
and astronomy.

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Lecture

HG Wells calls his stories "scientific romances."
- Unreliable narrator established by nephew
- Meduesa = real life
    - Cannibalism in British imagination
    - Thin veneer of civilization
        - Sign of Four: Tonga, Andaman (falsely) believed to be cannibal
Norms, regulations, taboos (health) vanish in extreme circumstances.
- Taboos are sometimes derived from medical concerns
- British court case established that necessity is not enough

Uncanny
- Deliberately vague term to describe the appalling
    - Freud: subjective experience reminding its viewer of repressed
      memories/experiences/desires
    - Wells implements this in Prendick's fear of M'ling, "forgotten
      horrors of childhood."
    - Playing with the line between animal and human

The importance of eyes in Dr Moreau
- "Eyes are the window to the soul"
    - Bit cliched, but based on perception that personality correlates
    - Looking at someone, making eye contact ~ trust
- The eyes that Wells talks about are mistrusting: M'ling's red eyes are
  disturbing because they are abnormal and shifty
    - The cannibalism implied by hunger in the eyes is also about trust:
      there is limited trust between the men on the boat

Human and animal
- Prendick's humanity is mixed with animals/beastliness
    - Falls out of hammock *on all fours*
    - Food -> "animal comfort"
    - Shows that the line is a bit blurrier: culture, structure falls
      back to needs (food, water) that are shared with animals
    - After Moreau,Montgomery die, Prendick falls into "monster's ways."
- Prendick believes Moreau to vivisect people.
    - Vivisecting men violates the laws of human health.
    - But Prendick is actually convinced it's okay because he sees that
      Moreau is experimenting on something "inhuman"
        - Not cruel, Wells explores this cultural rule

Vivisection
- Moreau views his (fancy) vivisection experiments as natural scientific
  exploration extending standard surgeries
- Moreau wants to eliminate pain, sees it as inhuman and ignores it
    - For Prendick, actually makes him realize the humanity of beastfolk

Degeneration
- Social/biological idea in zeitgeist: fear that evolution doesn't
  necessarily increase intelligence, complexity
    - Lead humans "back down the evolutionary ladder"
    - Corresponds with scientific racism, arguments that urbanization
      and modernization collapsed traditional morals, crime, disease.
- Moreau: proto-eugenics
- Prendick's return to the city hints at sort of humanity's instability

Health
- Uses social/cultural, apersonal definition.
- Criticizes some medical health experiments
    - Questions about humanity, sacrifice in context of vivisection
    - Questions science
Walter Benjamin: "There is no document of civilization [advancement of
medical science] that is not also a document of barbarism."
- Pay attention to sacrifices made for science