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Summary
Chapter VII: The Locked Door
Montgomery and the white-haired man deliberate over where to house Prendick and decide to keep him in an easily secured room. Inside, Prendick notices an inner door that leads to a courtyard, which the white-haired man tells him is off-limits for his own safety. Prendick reflects on the nature of the islanders he has encountered so far. They all seem to walk strangely, look at him suspiciously, and avoid speaking to him. Montgomery’s black-faced attendant enters to serve Prendick a meal, and Prendick suddenly notices that his ears are pointed and fuzzy. Prendick then overhears Montgomery address the white-haired man by the name of Moreau, and he realizes he has heard of him before. After some reflection, Prendick remembers a pamphlet he had read ten years prior about the notorious Dr. Moreau, a physiologist who had been chased out of London for his experiments involving gruesome animal vivisections (surgeries on live animals). Prendick suddenly realizes that the animals on the ship are fated to become part of Moreau’s experiments. He wonders again about the nature of the crippled and deformed islanders.
Chapter VIII: The Crying of the Puma
Over lunch with Montgomery, Prendick inquires about the attendant’s pointed ears. Montgomery feigns ignorance and pretends not to have noticed anything odd about the man, claiming that he had joined their crew in San Francisco. When Prendick asks him about the other men, Montgomery similarly deflects. Suddenly, the meal is disrupted by the pained cries of an animal in the adjacent room, which Prendick assumes to be the puma. As its tortured howls grow stronger and stronger, Montgomery attempts to dull his senses with whiskey and offers some to Prendick. Prendick refuses, saying he abstains from alcohol, but the puma’s cries disturb him greatly. He tries to distract himself with reading to no avail. Unable to bear the puma’s cries any longer, Prendick leaves the house and walks out of earshot.
Chapter IX: The Thing in the Forest
Prendick continues walking into the jungle until his distress begins to fade. As he sits down to rest, he observes a man walking on all fours like an animal and drinking from a stream with its mouth. The man flees when he notices Prendick’s presence. Prendick continues through the forest and discovers the mutilated corpse of a rabbit, swarming with flies. Next, he comes upon two grotesque men and a woman with hog-like physical features. They are chanting unintelligibly and performing what appears to be some sort of ritual. Amazed, Prendick retreats into the forest and, as darkness begins to fall, attempts to make his way back to the compound. But soon he realizes that the man from the stream is stalking him. Spooked, Prendick uses his handkerchief to fashion a sling. As the strange man approaches him on all fours, Prendick slings a stone at the man, hitting him in the temple and knocking him unconscious. Prendick runs through the jungle until he once again hears the cries of the puma. This time, the sound brings him relief because he knows he has found his way back.
Analysis
These chapters quickly dispense with any hope that Prendick might have happily found his calling as a researcher on the island. Although Montgomery and the white-haired man treat him with civility, they require him to stay in the room with the locked door until they are ready to divulge the island’s secrets. This confinement does not bother Prendick until he overhears Moreau’s name and begins to recollect the nature of his research. Prendick juxtaposes his gradual recollection of “The Moreau Horrors,” the pamphlet that exposed him as a ruthless vivisectionist, with his shocking discovery that M’ling has furry, pointed ears. Upon realizing who Moreau is, Prendick suddenly realizes the purpose of the animals brought to the island. He also suspects some vague association between Moreau’s work and M’ling’s pointy ears or glowing eyes, but he cannot pinpoint the connection. When he asks Montgomery about M’ling’s ears, Montgomery’s glib replies and erratic behavior make it obvious to Prendick that he is lying.
The crying of the puma intensifies Prendick’s growing sense of dread. Whereas Montgomery seems merely annoyed and drowns out the puma with rum, Prendick cannot bear the sound of the animal’s pain. Imagining the horrific suffering that Moreau is inflicting upon the puma, he tries to calm his nerves by fleeing into the jungle. But his foray into nature provides only a brief refuge from his psychological torment. He begins meeting people with increasingly animal-like features and behaviors. Although he studied biology, Prendick does not know what to call these creatures, hence the title of chapter IX, “The Thing in the Forest.” Whatever they are, he knows they pose a danger to him. The mutilated rabbit signals that the island is a brutal and dangerous place, especially for new arrivals like himself. The danger quickly becomes personal when Prendick realizes he is being hunted by “the Thing.” He escapes the terrors of the jungle only by fashioning a crude weapon to defend himself and then returning to the comparative security of the human settlement.
Although Prendick’s encounter with the Thing is certainly terrifying, he seems equally traumatized by the grotesque blend of human and animal features that he observes in the jungle. Like M’ling and the evil boatmen, the “Thing” and the hog-like people all have human form, wear clothes, and speak. The hog-people even dance and chant gibberish, as if involved in a pagan ritual. Yet their bodies also have unmistakably animal features, and they exhibit animal behaviors as well as human ones. During the chase, the Thing changes postures several times, sometimes running on all fours, sometimes standing erect. Likewise, Prendick vacillates between calling him a man, an animal, and an animal-man. This blurring of the distinctions between humans and animals becomes one of the novel’s major themes. As Prendick will soon discover, the island is populated by many such creatures who straddle the line between human and beast. These Beast People defy Prendick’s natural inclination as a biologist to classify, describe, and define. In short, they upend his entire framework for understanding the world.
