Modern readers might be uncomfortable with the fact that almost all of the characters are either white colonists or half-animal hybrids, but I think this misses the point of the satire. Wells himself held a variety of opinions, ranging from the vaguely progressive to the downright strange, but there is no hiding the fact that this is a Victorian novel (albeit a light and very readable one). As the beast-people start to revert to instinct, Prendrick struggles to avoid being torn apart by them – and to stay off the doctor’s dissecting table. Prendrick at first believes the islanders to be men who have devolved into beasts, but the opposite is true: they are the results of Moreau’s hideous experiments to turn animals into human beings. His only companions are Montgomery, a heavy-drinking medic, and Moreau, an arrogant scientist with a dark past – and the strange, brutish people whom Moreau has trained to obey him. The narrator, Prendrick, finds himself lost on a mysterious tropical island. Like The War of the Worlds, The Island of Doctor Moreau has aged much better than might be expected. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau is a vivid, uncomfortable exploration of these concepts and remains just as disturbing today, even though much of the science behind it has been disproved. Ideas of hypnotism and psychology were starting to be taken seriously. The first few voices were questioning the politics of Empire. The concept of evolution challenged traditional religious belief. He leaves London and lives in near-solitude in the countryside, devoting himself to chemistry as well as astronomy in the studies of which he finds some peace.The late Victorian era was a time of new and dangerous ideas. As ships rarely pass the island, Predict will be housed in an outer room of an enclosed compound. Seeing that the captain has abandoned Predict, Montgomery takes pity and rescues him. Despite this, the captain leaves Predict in a dinghy and sails away. A passing ship called Ipecacuanha takes him aboard, and a man named Montgomery revives him. The Island of Doctor Moreau is the account of Edward Predict, an Englishman with a scientific education who survives a shipwreck in the southern Pacific Ocean.
The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Predict, a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat who is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, a mad scientist who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel by English author H.
0 kommentar(er)
