The Island of Dr. Moreau

Wonderful horror classic that is scary, disturbing, and interesting.

There were a couple of different themes that I noted. The most talked about is the arrogance of tampering with nature and the cruel indifference to pain, demonstrated by the title character. It's never clear what Dr. Moreau's goals are, other than to simply prove he can do it. (Something also seen in The Invisible Man.) Even if you don't know this story, you can predict it. Dr. Moreau and company lose all control of the situation that they should never have been messing with to begin with.

The second theme is the idea of the beast or animal side found in mankind. The narrator, Pendrick who is portrayed as a “prude” and generally inexperienced with life, is exposed to this while on the island when he's forced to interact with the beast men.

When Pendrick goes back to civilization, he can no longer stand to be around people. Even though he is aware of the “higher” and “moral” nature of humans, when he looks at them he can't quite believe in it and only sees the animal in them. I'm not quite sure why he only focuses on the negative aspects of this as there are many wonderful things we inherit from our close genetic relationship with animals. But the character is portrayed as educated and intelligent but naïve and superficial in his thinking, so this is consistent.

This is one of those novels that is often remade, satirized, paid tribute to and so on. It's easy to see why; there's a lot to feed the storyteller's imagination.

“Mutants” or the Mighty Boosh's version of The Island of Dr. Moreau.