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Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Puma
As Moreau’s latest victim of vivisection, the puma symbolizes the cruelty and hubris of Moreau’s scientific investigations. Aboard the schooner, the puma is confined to a cage so small that it cannot turn around, a formidable force of nature cruelly restrained by its human captors. Once Moreau begins vivisecting the puma, the sound of its tortured cries drives Prendick to flee into the jungle, but they evoke no sympathy from Moreau, who is determined to transform the puma into a more perfect specimen of humanity than any of his previous experiments. But the puma’s eventual triumph over Moreau illustrates the folly of his scientific pursuits. When the hideously transformed puma escapes, bleeding and covered in bandages, Moreau pursues it, only to be killed himself. Moreau’s death in pursuit of the puma illustrates the dangerous consequences of his presumption that science can overcome nature.
The Rabbits
The rabbits symbolize the hypocrisy and futility of the Law, which is designed to repress the natural instincts of the Beast People. Unlike the other animal cargo, Montgomery immediately releases the rabbits into the jungle when the schooner arrives on the island, encouraging them to breed and multiply so they can serve as a source of meat for the humans. But the humans’ intention to hunt rabbits for meat proves hypocritical given that the Law, which the humans impose upon the Beast Folk, forbids hunting and eating of flesh. Later, the discovery of mutilated rabbit corpses in the jungle signals that some of the Beast Folk have begun violating the prohibition against hunting. Moreau, recognizing the potential danger of this disobedience, resolves to punish the Leopard-man, the suspected culprit. However, after the Leopard-man is caught and killed, the Hyena-swine immediately begins tearing into his flesh, suggesting that others among the Beast Folk have given in to their carnivorous instincts. The ensuing rebellion of the Beast Folk, which is accompanied by similarly bloody attacks, illustrates the futility of trying to suppress natural instincts.
Alcohol
Alcohol serves as a prominent symbol of human vice and weakness in the novel. Early on, the continuously drunken Captain Davies embodies the corrupting effects of alcohol through his profane tirades against Montgomery and Prendick. Several times, Prendick attempts to dismiss the captain’s foul behavior by observing that he is drunk, but Montgomery rightly observes that the captain is always drunk, and that drunkenness does not excuse his tyrannical abuses. Ironically, Montgomery himself struggles with alcoholism. His exile to the island was occasioned by some youthful indiscretion involving alcohol, and he continues to drink heavily to drown out the cries of the puma and his own guilty conscience.
Prendick, on the other hand, is an “abstainer” who declines Montgomery’s repeated offers of brandy and whiskey, marking him as morally upright and uncorrupted by vice. Moreau, for his part, seems to lack any moral compass, but he too seems to recognize the danger of human vice, taking care that the Beast Folk do not have access to alcohol. After Moreau’s death, Montgomery’s drunken decision to give brandy to M’ling and several other Beast Folk proves fatal, as he and M’ling are unable to defend themselves from an attack. The loyal M’ling, himself half-crippled by Moreau’s attempts to make him human, dies trying to defend his drunken master with a smashed brandy bottle, a fitting metaphor for the crippling effects of human vice.
