Themes of The Island of Doctor Moreau (1986 novel)

Themes of The Island of Doctor Moreau.

Nature vs Nurture
Nature vs Nurture and the debate between Eugenics, Euphenics and Euthenics are featured in the conflict between the beast people's nature and what they were vivisected and indoctrinated into.

Eugenics vs Euphenics vs Euthenics
H. G. Wells believed in the theoretical possibility of eugenics but believed that humans were too ignorant and corrupt for it to work in practice. He would advocate education as the better route and used The Island of Doctor Moreau as a way to urge people to make sure they were giving good education that wasn't merely a form of control.

Criticism of Religion
Dr, Moreau can be seen as a caricature of God as created by artificial religion.

Hypocrisy of God's Omniscience
In The Island of Doctor Moreau, Dr. Moreau and Montgomery have access to eating rabbit but the Beast-folk aren't allowed to cook a rabbit. Montgomery negligently teaches them and leads the Island to destruction. This is comparable to the myth of the original sin where God is omniscient yet he restricts knowledge from his creations. Lucifer finally tempts Eve to acquire forbidden knowledge which leads her and Adam to have to leave the Garden of Eden.

The paradox of God's omniscience and omnibenevolence may be put in a trilemma like below where you can't hold all beliefs at once.


 * 1) God is omniscient (meaning he has all thoughts)
 * 2) God is omnibeneolent.
 * 3) It is evil to have certain thoughts.

One way to fix the trilemma is to say that thoughts being evil is contextual and based upon whether the holder is able to endure them without committing evil actions. So God and Moreau are justified because they don't have the same nature that would cause the thoughts to turn them into evil or beastly people.