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Racism and The Island of Dr. Moreau

The Island of Dr. Moreau, written by H.G. Wells in 1896, presents a dystopian tale of a scientist who toys with evolution and pays the price for his experimentation. The novel also presents the Beast Men in terms of race and as the "other". Several texts and theoretical articles have weighed in on the racist undertones of the novel and the colonial views of non-Europeans. The Island of Dr. Moreau shows the influences of Eugenics, the science of human breeding, upon Wells and his writing of the novel. Wells takes the theory and stretches it, applying it to Dr. Moreau’s vivisected animals, who stand in for the inferior races or non-Europeans.

Wells, Eugenics and The Island of Dr. Moreau

Wells was a fierce Darwinist and believed in Eugenics and the need for population control. Wells converted from Catholicism early in his life and his “hostility to the Catholic Church arose from his perception that its opposition to birth control stood in the way of any improvement in the human condition” (Carey 119). Critics argue that Wells’ Beast Men and their inability to breed successfully shows his Eugenic thoughts that “the inhabitants of the Orient and Africa are seen as obstacles to any real human progress” (Carey 119). In the novel Montgomery tells Prendick that the Beast Men “actually bore offspring, but that these generally died. There was no evidence of the inheritance of the acquired human characteristics” (Wells 81). Wells believed that inferior races, in this case the fictionalised Beast Men, should not be permitted to reproduce within society. The fact that central Beast Men characters are described in terms related to ‘other’ races, ties in with Wells’ beliefs about inferior races and their success within a society. Elena Gomel in her article, goes as far as to compare Dr. Moreau’s activities with that of Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele. In Prendick’s first encounters with Moreau’s island and experiments “His response is abhorrence and fear. But after he meets Moreau and the latter has a chance to expound his philosophy, Prendick undergoes a complete about-face. When he looks at Moreau at the close of their conversation, he sees not the madman or the criminal he expected to find but an iconic figure of wisdom” (Gomel 412). Gomel parallels this with descriptions of Mengele who was enveloped in the mystique of generality, deliberately cultivating an image of himself as an “abstraction” rather than an individual human being (Gomel 412). Both men were influenced by Eugenics theory and strove to create the ‘perfect’ race of people.