Summary  

Chapter IV: At the Schooner’s Rail 

That evening, as the ship draws near to the island, Prendick and Montgomery have a stilted conversation. Montgomery reveals little about the island where he lives, but he speaks wistfully about his time as a medical student in London eleven years earlier. He tells Prendick that because of some indiscretion in London, he is an “outcast from civilization,” but he does not reveal more. Prendick, hesitant to inquire further, thanks Montgomery for having saved his life. Montgomery rebuffs his gratitude, saying it was by sheer chance that he happened to save Prendick, just as he blames his expulsion from London on a chance event. As Prendick listens, he spots Montgomery’s attendant, the black-faced man, who is also looking out over the sea. For an instant, the attendant’s eyes give off an eerie reflection of the lamp hanging near the ship’s steering wheel, giving Prendick a jolt of terror.  

Chapter V: The Man Who Had Nowhere to Go 

The following morning, Prendick is awakened from disturbing dreams by a commotion on deck. The schooner has arrived at the island. Emerging from his cabin, he sees the puma, cowering in fear, being lowered over the edge onto a boat. Captain Davies, still drunk, approaches Prendick and informs him rudely that all the ship’s cargo is to be unloaded, including Prendick himself. Prendick entreats Montgomery and his new white-haired companion to let him join them on the island, but to his surprise and dismay, Montgomery refuses. Captain Davies says Prendick can’t stay on the ship, and commands the crew set adrift in the dingey. As the crew lowers Prendick onto the dingey Prendick notices the odd, brown faces of the men helping Montgomery unload his cargo. As the dingey drifts off, the schooner recedes out of sight and Montgomery’s boast head off toward the island. Once again stranded at sea, Prendick falls into despair and prays to die.  

Chapter VI: The Evil-Looking Boatmen 

When the islanders see Prendick floating adrift, they convince Montgomery not to abandon him. Montgomery circles back, hitches the dingey to his boat, and begins towing Prendick to shore. Prendick observes the crew of Montgomery’s boat more closely. The white-haired man sits silently, studying Prendick from the boat. Montgomery’s black-faced attendant is also in the boat along with the three brown-faced sailors who have strange physical proportions, move awkwardly, and wear shabby clothing. Another man, also ugly and grotesque, awaits them on the beach, pacing back and forth. The physical deformities in these men arouse in Prendick a strange sense of disgust and terror.  

Once ashore, the islanders begin to transport the cargo and creatures up the hill. The white-haired man approaches Prendick and asks about his education. Prendick responds that he studied biology under Huxley at the Royal College of Science. The white-haired man seems pleased to learn this, explaining that he and Montgomery are themselves biologists conducting research on the island. He politely provides Prendick with some biscuits and whiskey, which Prendick does not drink, and explains that the island receives ships only about once per year. Montgomery then asks for Prendick’s help moving the rabbit hutches. Prendick is surprised when Montgomery begins releasing the rabbits into the wild, encouraging them to breed and multiply. Montgomery explains that the rabbits have been brought to the island as a source of meat.  

Analysis  

These chapters further develop Prendick’s sense of confusion and bewilderment as he is carried farther from civilization and deeper into a world that confounds his perceptions of human decency. On the schooner, he seems to develop an ally in Montgomery, his rescuer, only to have Montgomery refuse him passage to the island. Prendick finds this betrayal inexplicably cruel, especially after Captain Davies insists that Prendick will be expelled from the schooner whether Montgomery takes him or not. But Montgomery holds a much different view of life than Prendick, believing that one’s lot in life is subject to the whims of chance. He scoffs at the notion that he is Prendick’s savior, considering it a mere coincidence that he was in the right place and the right mood to pluck Prendick from the sea. When Captain Davies has Prendick cast overboard, back into the dingey of The Lady Vain, Montgomery feels no obligation to rescue him again. Neither, apparently, does the white-haired man who is later revealed to be Moreau. 

This time, Prendick’s salvation turns out to be the islanders, whom Prendick dubs “evil-looking boatmen” in the title of chapter VI. These unlikely saviors take pity on Prendick despite their evil looks. Yet the boatmen present another fascinating enigma for the confused Prendick. As with Montgomery’s black-faced attendant, the boatmen have dark complexions and physical deformities that Prendick characterizes as grotesque, ugly, brutish, and unnatural. He catalogues the boatmen’s deformities and furtive behavior at great length, as if he is not sure what to make of them. As the boat approaches the beach, Prendick spots similarly brutish men on the shore, but he questions whether they are figments of his imagination, as if he no longer trusts his own eyes. Prendick’s self-doubt creates suspense for the reader, as we wonder, along with Prendick, what strange manner of people populate the island.  

Prendick’s first encounter with the white-haired Moreau offers some hope that he will have at least one kindred soul on the island. Unlike the evil-looking boatman, Moreau is an older, white-haired Englishman whose broad shoulders and quiet demeanor project power and wisdom. Once they arrive on the island, Moreau treats Prendick with civility and hospitality, offering him breakfast and brandy. He seems pleased to learn that Prendick has studied under Thomas Henry Huxley, a nineteenth-century English biologist and fierce proponent of Darwinism, and he intimates that Prendick could perhaps contribute to the island’s biological research. However, there are subtle clues that Moreau’s magnanimity has its limits. For one, he neglects to tell Prendick his name, and he reveals nothing about his research beyond its biological nature. When Moreau leaves, Montgomery starts to warn Prendick to be careful about Moreau before thinking better of it. Instead, he asks Prendick for help with the rabbits. With dark irony, Montgomery calls the rabbits “my friends” while releasing them into the wild as a future source of meat, perhaps foreshadowing that all those welcomed to the island are victims.