The Island of Doctor Moreau
Literary Analysis
Explanation and Background
Literary analysis: The Island of Doctor Moreau
Rough draft due: October 2nd at the start of class
Final draft due: October 7th at the start of class
requirements
1,800 – 2,400 words (approx. 6-8 pgs.) + Works Cited Page
Pose an original interpretation of The Island of Doctor Moreau.
Reference one of the historical or critical readings from the Broadview editions (these are what we read on Sept. 18).
prompt
So what? This is the question that we always ask in relation to literature. A conversation that you may have with an English instructor might go as follows:
Hetty was so tragic.
So what?
I mean, she had no one to turn to.
So what?
She was like, abandoned by her society for her affair with Arthur, but he wasn’t even punished.
So what?
It’s a real double-standard, you know. Hetty is punished for her desire.
Now you’re getting somewhere.
A literary analysis should offer your analysis of a text’s relevance to greater culture. What is this text saying about one’s experience of the world around us? This is what you’ll seek to answer. To support your interpretation, you will draw on the language of the text, meaning direct quotations (you will need a minimum of one quotation per paragraph).
Examples
You will have access to examples on Blackboard, so I recommend you look there. However, you might also review the chapter “Strategic Reading.” The authors illustrate what aspects of a text you might analyze and how to form an argument. Consider their reading of animals in Frederick Douglass narrative. They do NOT just say, “Frederick Douglas uses animals to represent the slave holders.” This is the type of statement to which you might reply, “So what?” It doesn’t tell you anything significant about the novel. Rather than make a general (and unexciting) statement like this, they argue, “Frederick Douglas uses animal imagery to represent the character of the slave holders, inverting the traditional association of animals with slaves to suggest that the slave holders are the true uncivilized monsters.” Which statement is better? Which one tells you more? Which one can you argue with? If Douglas refers to the slave holders as animals, you can’t argue with that, but you might argue that, rather than suggesting that the slave holders are monsters, Douglas inverts the traditional trope to suggest that the slave holders are not that different from the slaves from whom they want to distinguish themselves.
Your job is to do this with The Island of Doctor Moreau. Pick an attribute of the story or text that you found particularly interesting and explain it in your literary analysis.
Learning objectives
At the end of this assignment you should have demonstrated your ability to do the following:
Analyze the language of a text.
Incorporate terms that illustrate your familiarity with the genre of writing.
Reference and analyze the language of the text to support your analysis.
Write a clear thesis statement.
Properly use MLA format.
Logically organize your argument.
Do college-level research.
Each of these objectives meets portions of the portfolio requires. The goal with assignment is to demonstrate your ability to analyze a text and form a cohesive argument explaining that analysis. Secondary is demonstrating your ability to do college-level research. (NOTE: Portfolios have been failed for being improperly formatted.)
rubric
[NOTE: Basic completion of the assignment does NOT guarantee an ‘A’; that is reserved for students who go above and beyond in their work. No title equals an automatic -2 pts.]
1.) (80 pts.) Meets Assignment Criteria
___ (10 pts.) Introduction clearly identifies the text and your argument about it; it ends with a clear thesis.
___ (10 pts.) Thesis is original and clearly articulates your interpretation of the text.
___ (10 pts.) References one of the historical/critical readings in support of your argument.
___ (20 pts.) Includes direct quotations from the text that function as evidence in support of your claims.
___ (10 pts.) Clear organizational structure designed to lead your reader through your argument.
___ (10 pts.) Clearly defined topic and concluding sentences in each paragraph.
___ (10 pts.) Each paragraph expresses one idea that supports your overall analysis.
2.) (20 pts.) Formatting, Grammar, and Works Cited
___ (5 pts.) Proper MLA formatting (including title, in-text citations, and Works Cited page).
___ (5 pts.) Grammatical correctness of work, including typos, verb tense, sentence structure, etc.
___ (10 pts.) Between 1,800 – 2,400 words (approx. 6-8 pgs.). All or nothing! I will be checking the word count, not just page count.
Deciphering Moreau’s island
Who can summarize what happened in this section of reading?
Themes: the topic(s) that a text treats
Major themes to discuss
Vivisection
Religion
Race
Evolution
Minor themes
Language and Civilization
Criminality
Limits of Science
Male Reproduction
Gender
Nature
Ethics and Morality
Vivisection: so far, do you think the text if for or against?
Have we the right to make experiments on animals and vivisect?…I think we have this right, wholly and absolutely. It would be strange indeed if we recognized man’s right to make use of animals in every walk of life, for domestic service, for food, and then forbade him to make use of them for his own instruction in one of the sciences most useful to humanity. No hesitation is possible; the science of life can be established only through experiment, and we can save living beings from death only after sacrificing others. Experiments must be made either on man or on animals. Now I think that physicians already make too many dangerous experiments on man, before carefully studying them on animals. I do not admit that it is moral to try more or less dangerous or active remedies on patients in hospitals, without first experimenting with them on dogs; for I shall prove, further on, that results obtained on animals may all be conclusive for man when we know how to experiment properly. (Claude Bernard, 19th c. Physician)
Several deep incisions were made in the muscles of the back…and I once more applied the poker to staunch the bleeding of several small arteries; not a moan was heard, not the least starting of a nerve was perceptible…by means of a crucial incision, I laid open the abdominal cavity and took out upon the table the mass of intestines; my students had then the advantage of a demonstration of the peristaltic motion of those organs…the liver and spleen torn and wounded… (Horace Nelson, 19th c. Physician)
Anti-vivisection
Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870): “The necessity for these experiments I dispute. Man has no right to gratify an idle and purposeless curiosity through the practice of cruelty.”
Robert Browning, poet (1812-1889): “I despise and abhor the pleas on behalf of that infamous practice, vivisection… I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured to death on the pretense of sparing me a twinge or two.”
Lewis Carroll, mathematician and author of Alice in Wonderland (1832-1898): “Forbid the day when vivisection shall be practiced in every college and school, and when the man of science, looking forth over a world which will then own no other sway than his, shall exult in the thought that he had made of this fair earth, if not a heaven for man, at least a hell for animals.”
religion
Job 5:18: “For He inflicts pain, and gives relief; He wounds, and His hands also heal.”
Deuteronomy 32:39: “See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.”
The Law:
His is the House of Pain.
His is the hand that makes.
His is the hand that wounds.
His is the hand that heals.
Race: “Am I not a Man and a Brother?”
Josiah Wedgewood in the 18th c. to end the slave trade.
According to Lombroso’s research, “[a]ll travelers know that among the Negroes and savages of America, sensitivity to pain is so limited that the former laugh as they mutilate their hands to escape work, while the latter sing their tribe’s praises while being burned alive” (Criminal Man 69). He “suspect[ed] that criminals are less sensitive to pain than the average man” (206).
The Law:
Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Not to chae other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?
Evolution
Charles Darwin’s The Origin of the Species, 1859: “Though Nature grants long periods of time for the work of natural selection, she does not grant an indefinite period; for as all organic beings are striving to seize on each place in the economy of nature, if any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will be exterminated” (201 in Broadview).
Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man, 1896: “With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. […] Thus the weak members of civilized society propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed” (235).
H. G. Wells’s “Human Evolution, An Artificial Process,” 1896: “…the average man of our society is now intrinsically what he was in Palaeolithic times. Regard his psychology, and particularly his disposition to rages and controversy, his love of hunting and violent exercise, and his powerful sexual desires. […] A decent citizen is always controlling and disciplining the impulses of anger, forcing himself to monotonous work, and resisting the seductions of the sporting instinct and a wayward imagination. […] If the child of a civilized man…could be transferred, at the moment of its birth, to the arms of some Palaeolithich mother, it is conceivable that it would grow up a savage in no way superior, by any standards, to the true-born Palaeolithic savage. The main difference is extrinsic, it is a difference in the scope and nature of the circle of thought, and it arose, one may conceive, as a result of the development of speech” (229).
Your thoughts: Go to “Assignments”
Answer any one of the questions in 1-2 paragraphs.
If you were Prendick, would you have stayed on the island after hearing Moreau’s explanation? Why or why not?
Moreau validates his experiments by claiming that lower-order creatures cannot really feel pain because pain emerges from an intellectual process. Ethically speaking, how did you respond to Moreau’s explanation?
Why do you think it matters to Prendick whether or not the Beast People are “animalised victims” (109) or “humanised animals” (123)? Do you think that there’s a difference? Explain.
