'The Island of Doctor Moreau': Favorites

[Scheherazade]

Who is your favorite character in The Island of Doctor Moreau and why? What is your favorite quote/passage?



Book Club Procedures (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=57103#post57103)

[Shea]

I liked Montgomery because of his caring nature though it seemed, at times, to go against his better judgment. At other times I didn't like him because of his involvement with the vivisections, but I also thought that that made his character more round and interesting. What he said stuck with me throughout the reading when Prendick tried to thank him for the rescue in chapter 4,

"Thank no one. You had the need, and I had the knowledge; and I injected and fed you much as I might have collected a specimen. I was bored and wanted something to do. If I'd been jaded that day, or hadn't liked your face, well - it's a curious question where you would have been now!"

He always seems to be changing and he makes me ponder.

This isn't quite the way I wanted to say why I liked his character, but it's late and I just finished The Mill on the Floss. Maybe I'll come up with something better later.

[papayahed]

I can't say I had any favorites.

[genoveva]

What he said stuck with me throughout the reading when Prendick tried to thank him for the rescue in chapter 4,

"Thank no one. You had the need, and I had the knowledge; and I injected and fed you much as I might have collected a specimen. I was bored and wanted something to do. If I'd been jaded that day, or hadn't liked your face, well - it's a curious question where you would have been now!"



A quote that I had marked was the very beginning of this very conversation.
Prendick begins:
"If I may say it," said I, after a time, "you have saved my life."

And this is the response Montgomery gives that seemed very interesting to me:

"Chance," he answered; "just chance."

[emily655321]

That part of Montgomery I took to be evidence of another subplot in the story. He is actually a very caring person, but working with Moreau has trained him to be callous sometimes. Most of the time, actually, but his gentler side can't help peeking through. To me, this seems another example of a "converted" being reverting back to their natural inclinations, the same way the Beast Folk reverted back to beasts. Montgomery can understand them because he, too, has been conditioned by Moreau to be "civilized" (in Mongomery's case, to ignore his feelings of empathy), and he also has difficulty assimilating the attitude completely.

I really, really disliked Prendick. Perhaps it is just a reflection of Wells' skill as an author, or lack thereof, but he never seems to care about anyone. He says he develops friendships with the sloth man and dog man, but when they revert back to animals, and when he finds the dog man dead, he sort of shrugs his shoulders and goes on with things. His disgust and disdain for the beast-like qualities in the Beast Folk seems uniquely Victorian, in a way I can't relate to. If it were written today, it would be likely that the attitude would be one of sympathy for the animals who have been tainted by humanity. In any event, the overriding attitude of Prendick's disgust that permeates the book made me not like it. Almost like, "Well, if you don't even care about the characters in your book, why should I?"

[papayahed]

I really, really disliked Prendick. Perhaps it is just a reflection of Wells' skill as an author, or lack thereof, but he never seems to care about anyone. He says he develops friendships with the sloth man and dog man, but when they revert back to animals, and when he finds the dog man dead, he sort of shrugs his shoulders and goes on with things. His disgust and disdain for the beast-like qualities in the Beast Folk seems uniquely Victorian, in a way I can't relate to. If it were written today, it would be likely that the attitude would be one of sympathy for the animals who have been tainted by humanity. In any event, the overriding attitude of Prendick's disgust that permeates the book made me not like it. Almost like, "Well, if you don't even care about the characters in your book, why should I?"

That's what I was thinking.

[SleepyWitch]

I did like the book, but I share Emily's dislike of Prendick, for the same reasons.
I don't really have any faves but if I'd have to decide for one it would be Montgomery. Hi's character is a very realistic description of someone who is stuck with a boss whose ideals he does not fully share but to whose fate he has tied his own. it's like he made this one mistake and is doomed to live and work with Moreau forever, things just kinda got out of hand and there's nothing he can do about it. although he's often sceptical of Moreau's ideas, he has nowhere else to go....

***
he kinda reminds me of a Geo teacher at my univ whom we nicknamed "Fiffi" (a name for dogs in Germany). this guy was working on his PhD under a grumpy old professor. he came on a fieldtrip with us and had to do all the dirty work while the professor was lazying around. he actually had a vicious sense of humour but he only used his irony to make jokes about trivial things but never stood up to the prof, although he disapproved of his boss's behaviour.... one day, there were bones to eat and the Professor called "*name of the bloke*, bones!" and he came dashing out of his tent... that's why we called him Fiffi....
hehe, sorry about this ramble.. all i was trying to say was that i found Well's characterization of Montgomery very convincing because it reminded me of this bloke....

***
Prendik sees everything in black-and-white, whereas Montgomery is a slightly more complex character...

[Erna]

A real favorite I don't have. Moreau was to disgusting with this experiments. I chose Pendrick to be my favorite. I agree that he's a flat figure and sees everything black and white but in this case I could feel his disgust.

I can't understand why Montgomery didn't try to stop Moreau and his drinking habbits are to bad, taking away all the sense of humanity and trying to find a solution in the end.

[Scheherazade]

He says he develops friendships with the sloth man and dog man, but when they revert back to animals, and when he finds the dog man dead, he sort of shrugs his shoulders and goes on with things. His disgust and disdain for the beast-like qualities in the Beast Folk seems uniquely Victorian, in a way I can't relate to. I would like to point out couple of passages from Chapter 16:
but now, seeing the creature there in a perfectly animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes and its imperfectly human face distorted with terror, I realised again the fact of its humanity. In another moment other of its pursuers would see it, and it would be overpowered and captured, to experience once more the horrible tortures of the enclosure.And as he shoots the Leopard Man simply because he doesn't want him (the LM) to go through the pain and experiments of Moreau again, claims:
"I'm sorry," said I, though I was not.I think Prendick actually despises the human qualities in those animals and resents the fact that Moreau has interfered with their biology and lives:
Poor brutes! I began to see the viler aspect of Moreau's cruelty. I had not thought before of the pain and trouble that came to these poor victims after they had passed from Moreau's hands. I had shivered only at the days of actual torment in the enclosure. But now that seemed to me the lesser part. Before, they had been beasts, their instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings, and happy as living things may be. Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand; their mock-human existence, begun in an agony, was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau - and for what? It was the wantonness of it that stirred me.

Had Moreau had any intelligible object, I could have sympathised at least a little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain as that. I could have forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate. But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless! His curiosity, his mad, aimless investigations, drove him on; and the Things were thrown out to live a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer, and at last to die painfully. They were wretched in themselves; the old animal hate moved them to trouble one another; the Law held them back from a brief hot struggle and a decisive end to their natural animosities. I cannot say yet who my favorite character is in the book (still reading) but looking at these passages, do you really think he does not care for those animals once he overcomes his shock?

If it were written today, it would be likely that the attitude would be one of sympathy for the animals who have been tainted by humanity.I think we would all be shocked, scared if we were to face such creatures (and we should be probably). It is OK for us to imagine similar things today, having read and watched it all in sci-fi/fantasy books/movies but if it were the real life, we couldn't help being shocked. As for feeling sympathy... Most of us have pets in our homes. Don't you think they are tainted by humanity as well? We send our kittens to sandboxes; our dogs are trained to wait for us to take them outside to do one of the most natural things; they are not allowed to hunt mice or birds and are supposed to eat food from tins. Aren't they tainted by our humanity? Do we sympathise as such?

[SleepyWitch]

i had a friend in primary school whose dog thought he was human. he would sit on chairs likea human.. i mean, the fact was he wasn't sitting on chairs but in a doggish posture but he was trying to sit like a human with his legs dangling from both sides of the seat... he also wanted to eat off plates and sit on the sofa. when people had a conversation he sat on the sofa with them and inclined his head like a person who's listening intently...
at the time it seem funny, but in the light of this book I'm not so sure any longer.. poor beast...