Dr. Moreau: Breaking The Law

1. “At a deeper level, Dr. Moreau suggests that man himself is an abomination who must fight their basic instincts. Just as Moreau’s beast-men struggle to avoid reverting to their beastlike natures” (Lightman Introduction). [From Bantam Classics reissue edition 2005]

Annotation: Alan Lightman notices that the beast-men, being forced to act like humans and not follow their animal instincts had been a struggle. However, after Dr. Moreau died the beast-men did not fear punishment of the Law since there was no one to punish them. The beast-men’s animal characteristics seemed to come back quicker because it was what felt more natural. So without society and rules to follow, the beast-men started becoming less civilized and reverted back to their
Moreau, was there to help keep them civilized and humanlike. Most Beast Folk, I detected kept the Law out of fear of returning to the House of Pain, or where Dr. Moreau did his surgical experiments. However, when the creatures notice that they can escape the punishment later in the book, they rebel and break the Law. By breaking the law though, the animal-men slowly turn themselves into primitive animals. When the Law is intact though, when any of the normal humans saw a Beast Folk break a law, they feared the House of Pain so much they would do anything to escape, even if it meant attempting to kill the human, like in the Leopard Man’s
Moreau desires to get rid of pain by inflicting so much pain among animals that they may be humanlike when they were probably fine how they were before. The Beast Folk even call Dr. Moreau’s enclosure ‘the House of Pain.’ When Edward Prendick was staying in the room next door to where Moreau did his experiments and could hear the screaming of the puma, it bothered him so much. Then when Prendick heard human screams, it freaked him out so much; he took part of a chair with a nail in it as a weapon and ran away. Even though Dr. Moreau wasn’t doing surgery on Prendick, he was pained by the noises he heard coming from the surgery. Basically, Dr. Moreau’s attempt to stop pain had only created pain.

9. “‘These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you as soon as you began to observe them… It’s afterwards as I observe them that persuasion fades. First one animal trait, then another” (Wells 58).
Annotation: Dr. Moreau is the first one in the book to say the theme that is constantly shown throughout the book. That man and animal will revert back to their primitive ways. Even though Moreau takes away their memory, changes genes, and teaches them as you would a human child, they change back to their old ways. It may be that in their original genes they still have, it contains behavioral or personality traits that decide how acts or thinks. Also for some, the instinct to rebel against the Law may make them revert back to the animal ways.