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“I say I became habituated to the Beast People, that a thousand things which had seemed unnatural and repulsive speedily became natural and ordinary to me. I suppose everything in existence takes its colour from the average hue of our surroundings."
In Chapter XV, after hearing Moreau’s discourse on his aims and methods, and after speaking further with Montgomery about the history and nature of the Beast Folk, Prendick’s initial disgust and fear of the Beast Folk begins to fade. That which initially seemed unnatural and abominable to him came to seem normal and natural, similar to the feeling of becoming acclimated to unfamiliar surroundings. Prendick’s realization that the Beast People are quite similar to “normal” humans proves pivotal, as it allows him to feel sympathy for the Beast Folk and their plight.
“This store which men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them,—the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, pain and pleasure, they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust."
In this quote from Chapter XIV, Dr. Moreau alludes to the Darwinian underpinnings of his worldview. As a scientist, Moreau asserts that humans evolved from beasts, and as such, they still have many of the characteristics of animals, among which are the capacity for pleasure and pain. However, Moreau considers pleasure and pain to be vestigial instincts that have outlived their purpose. He looks scornfully upon people and beasts who are ruled by the instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain, and he demonstrates his own mastery over pain by calmly driving his penknife into his own thigh. Of course, Moreau does not believe that most people have, like himself, overcome their primeval instincts. He despises Prendick for his moral objection to vivisection, and he feels no remorse for the pain he inflicts in the name of science.
“It may seem a strange contradiction in me,—I cannot explain the fact,—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…Abruptly I slipped out my revolver, aimed between its terror-struck eyes, and fired.”
In this quote from Chapter XVI, Prendick reflects on the mixture of animal and human qualities embodied in the Leopard-man, who is being pursued by Moreau and his fellow Beast Folk for breaking the Law. In one breath, Prendick calls the Leopard-man a “creature” with an “animal attitude,” and in the next, he affirms the “fact of its humanity” and sympathizes with the terror the Leopard-Man feels. Interestingly, Prendick’s sympathy for the Leopard Man prompts him to shoot him dead, which suggests that Prendick considers death a preferable alternative to suffering. Whether this killing is “humane” is debatable, but it certainly robs Moreau of the opportunity to make an example of the Leopard-man by torturing him in front of the other Beast Folk.
“I look about me at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,—none that have the calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation of the Islanders will be played over again on a larger scale."
In this quote from Chapter XXII, Prendick writes about his inability to reassimilate into English society after his escape from Dr. Moreau’s island. Although his “fellow-men” in England are fully human, he recognizes that they, just like the Beast People, possess animal instincts restrained only by the tenuous laws of civilized society. Haunted by his experiences on the island, he fears that the civilized world could easily suffer the kind of social collapse and he witnessed among the Beast Folk. For Prendick, Moreau’s “islanders” are not much different than the people of the British Isles
“An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.”
In Chapter XXI, alone with the Beast Folk after Moreau’s and Montgomery’s deaths, Prendick must use all of his wits to survive. With no remaining ammunition and only a whip and a hatchet to defend himself, Prendick resorts to a distinctly human innovation to prevent the Beast People from attacking him: he lies. Even though the Beast People have found Moreau’s body, Prendick manages to persuade them that Moreau lives on, and that the House of Pain, though destroyed, will come again.
On one level, Prendick’s lie distinguishes him from the Beast Folk, who are not capable of such deception. But the lie also illustrates the strength of Prendick’s animal instinct for self-preservation. When faced with a moral dilemma, the morally upright Prendick tells a bald-faced lie to save his own skin. When his survival is on the line, Prendick discovers that the main difference between himself and the Beast People is his intellectual capacity for deceit.
