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• 1 media/IslandOfDrMoreau.jpg 2023-03-01T07:15:48-08:00 The Island of Dr. Moreau - Background 6 plain 2023-03-17T15:30:43-07:00
  

       The Island of Dr. Moreau was written by H.G. Wells and published in 1896. Wells studied under zoologist T.H. Huxley at the Normal School of Science (Imperial College) before becoming an author. This experience greatly influenced his later science fiction books. According to Roger Luckhurst, Wells’s training meant

  "He was therefore able to pick up on many humanistic and religious concerns about scientific advances. Doctor Moreau is a character constructed from English fears about new kinds of Continental experimental medical science. When these ideas arrived in England in the 1870s, there was a vigorous campaign against the vivisection of animals in laboratories.”

       The late 1800s saw great advancements in science and technology. However, the Victorian people were afraid of its moral implications. The first guide to vivisection, the Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory by Claude Bernard, was well-known and sparked protests against the practice. The character Dr. Moreau was directly inspired by a real ‘mad’ scientist at the time, Emmanuel Klein. Klein was known for his “utter indifference to animal pain” and vivisection without anesthetic. This is mirrored by Moreau’s experimentation in the story and how his lab is dubbed the ‘House of Pain’ (Luckhurst). This idea that less sentience means it's more ‘okay’ to exploit animals and treat them cruelly remains popular in today’s science and is similarly criticized in other books, such as Jeff VanderMeer’s Borne. Yet The Island of Dr. Moreau focuses specifically on vivisection, and what could mean for science and morality.