Animal Instincts

While Prendick was stranded on Dr. Moreau’s island, he witnessed Dr. Moreau transform wild animals into human like creatures. These creatures followed rules requiring them to walk and talk like real humans. They obeyed these laws for fear of death, or even worse going to the House of Pain. Once Moreau had died, their whole belief system was gone. He had been a God like symbol; he gave them human life and had the power to take it away. Without him the laws no longer existed; they were free to act as they pleased without terrible consequences. Without the enforcement of the laws, their animal instincts soon returned. The Dog Man followed Prendick around the island like a lost puppy while the Hyaena-Swine tried to attack and kill him. They all reverted back to walking on all fours, stopped talking and began killing for food. But this wasn’t the only change, without human interaction and law Prendick became more animal like as well. He describes his appearence he said, “My hair grew long, and became matted together, I am told that even now my eyes have a strange brightness, a swift alertness of movement” (131). He resembled the animals, he had that wildness to his eyes that he found curious in animals when he first arrived on the island. After he returned to the human world, he couldn’t even interact with people. He was different, “[He] was almost as queer to men as [he] had been to the Beast People” (138). All living things have animals like instincts, humans just do a better job at repressing them. The law is the reason for acting civilized, without it we aren’t too different then animals.