Acknowledgements

The fulfillment of this thesis will partly end my postgraduate study. I would like to extend

my thanks here to all those who have given me assistance and support over the two and half

years.

My heartfelt gratitude shall go first and foremost to Professor Nie Wei, my supervisor, for

her valuable and enlightening guidance throughout all stages of the thesis writing. She has

given a great deal of important advice on the outline and development of my thesis.

Meanwhile she has constantly recommended relevant science fiction novels and criticism,

from which I greatly benefit. Without her encouragement and instruction, the thesis will not be

done.

I would also like to express my appreciation to all other SISU faculty members who have

broadened my horizon through lectures. Particularly I’m indebted to Professor Li Weiping and

Yu Jianhua, who lead me further to literary world. Their professional perspective and academic

integrity influence me to a great extent.

Last but not least, I am grateful to all my classmates. I learn a lot from our discussion in

class where their insightful and critical thinking is shown. During the completion of the thesis,

my three roommates have also given me numerous suggestions and encouragements, for

which I feel grateful.

ii

摘要

玛丽·雪莱（

1797-1851

）与赫伯特·乔治·威尔斯（

1866-1946

）尽管是相隔一个世

纪的英国作家，却在他们的巨作《弗兰肯斯坦》和《摩罗博士的岛》中似乎心神相通。

两位作家均采用“疯狂科学家”的科幻主题，探讨科学家妄图造人，肆意干预自然法则

产生的后果。两部作品中，疯狂科学家维克多·弗兰肯斯坦和摩罗博士僭越上帝成为造

物者，违背自然规律，也践踏了人类社会的伦理道德。结局自然是被他们创造的怪物或

兽人毁灭。除惊人一致的主题之外，两部小说对疯狂科学家的形象塑造和生育主题的表

现也十分相似。《弗兰肯斯坦》是雪莱创造的经典哥特小说，而《摩罗博士的岛》是威尔

斯科学传奇的代表。本文将以文本细读为基础，同时挖掘两部作品的意义。当下，科学

技术以史无前例的速度迅猛发展，但是，技术手段的滥用、误用仍然存在。本文的讨论

将展现雪莱与威尔斯末世预言般的构思，以作警示与反思。

论文共分为五个部分。引言概述小说及作者创作背景，评述已有的相关研究成果，

引入本文的研究内容。论文主体共三部分解析“疯狂科学家”主题。第一章探讨作品中

两位疯狂科学家与自然、伦理和宗教三方面的关系，挖掘《弗兰肯斯坦》和《摩罗博士

的岛》本质的相似意义。第二章评析雪莱和威尔斯娴熟的艺术手法，尤其象征与隐喻，

发掘鲜明科幻形象的塑造成因。第三章以前面的阐释为基础，联系时代、文学和作家经

历等因素，揭开疯狂科学家的生育神话诞生起源，以及对科幻小说重大的文学价值和现

实意义。最后一章得出结论，《弗兰肯斯坦》和《摩罗博士的岛》的主题研究为解读两部

作品提供更广阔的空间。在当今时代背景下，两部作品依然对科学、生态、人性和道德

具有深远影响。由此，玛丽·雪莱与威尔斯借助两位疯狂的科学家最终实现了“对话”。

关键词：《弗兰肯斯坦》；《摩罗博士的岛》；疯狂科学家；生育神话

iii

Abstract

Although Mary Shelley and Herbert George Wells lived a century apart from each other,

the two literary prophets seemed to be connected in the exploration of mad scientists theme in

Frankenstein and The Island of Doctor Moreau. Both reveal what might happen when

scientists tamper with creations of man and laws of nature. In these two science writings, mad

scientists Victor Frankenstein and Doctor Moreau overreach God as the Creator, expropriate

nature, and trespass on human ethics. As a consequence, both are destroyed by the monster and

the beast folk they have created. Apart from almost the same topic, the texts have much in

common in the characterization of mad scientists and the representation of their birth myths.

The mere readings of the two works trigger unbounded imagination and comprehension. This

thesis, based on close reading, attempts to connect the two works for broader literary and

aesthetic value. Hopefully it will excavate the apocalyptic vision of two great writers to the

modern world which witnesses an unprecedentedly rapid growth of science as well as the

abuse of technological power.

The thesis will be divided five parts. The introduction covers briefly the stories and

their authors, reviews what has been done by previous critics, and asserts the methodology

employed. The main body, composed of three parts, approaches the mad scientists theme in

detail. Chapter one discusses the thematic representation in the interactions of mad scientists

with nature, morality and religion, which pins down their essential similarity. Chapter two

probes ways mad scientists are delineated to show their mutual artistic techniques. During

the elaboration, multiple characters in the novels find association with each other where

Shelley and Wells display their expert application of symbols and allusions. The third chapter,

on the basis of former analysis, unveils how the birth myths are produced in different times

and cultural contexts. Finally the thesis concludes that a study of Frankenstein and The Island

of Doctor Moreau creates larger space for active interpretations and discloses their everlasting

impact on science, ecology, humanity and morality, etc. Mary Shelley and H. G. Wells

eventually have a chance to “talk” with each other through their mad scientists.

Key words: Frankenstein; The Island of Doctor Moreau; mad scientists; birth myth

Contents

Acknowledgements

Abstract (Chinese)………………………………………………………………………...........ii

Abstract (English)…………………………………………………………...…………………iii

Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1

Chapter 1 Interaction between Mad Scientists and the World .................................................... 7

1.1 Mad Scientists’ Violation of Natural Laws .................................................................... 7

1.2 Mad Scientists’ Assault of Social Ethics ...................................................................... 11

1.3 Mad Scientists’ Overthrow of Religious Beliefs.......................................................... 15

Chapter 2 Relationship between Mad Scientists and Their Foils.............................................. 19

2.1 Employment of Double and Trinity ............................................................................. 19

2.2 Exertion of Symbols and Allusions.............................................................................. 23

Chapter 3 Birth Myth of Modern Prometheus and Modern Faustus......................................... 28

3.1 Product of Evolutional Age.......................................................................................... 28

3.2 Influence of Literary Ancestry ..................................................................................... 32

3.3 Origin of Unusual Experience...................................................................................... 37

Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 41

Bibliography.............................................................................................................................. 44

1

Introduction

Mary Shelley, “the daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity”—William

Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft (Shelley 1980:5) and the second wife of Percy Bysshe

Shelley, is renowned for her gothic masterpiece Frankenstein. H. G. Wells, whose fame rests

mainly on an inexhaustible variety of scientific romances and short stories, is reputed by

critics as the “Father of Science Fiction” together with Jules Verne. The Island of Doctor

Moreau, though overshadowed by his other works like The Time Machine, The War of the

Worlds, and Tono-Bungay, makes its claim as the reworking of Frankenstein.

The fundamental connection consists in that both writings belong to the “mad scientist”

genre of science fiction. In Frankenstein, the scientist Victor Frankenstein fashions a monster

through galvanism in his laboratory. His hideous appearance immediately frightens his creator

away as well as whoever sees him. Though born innocent and good, the fiend turns against the

human world especially Victor for his ceaseless abandonments and misunderstandings. He

then avenges on Victor by murdering his families, which arouses Victor’s revenge as well. The

story ends when the frantic scientist dies in wretchedness from chasing his daemon while the

monster follows his father in destruction of fire. The Island of Doctor Moreau, in contrast,

features a vivisectionist who transforms animals humans and rules an island roaming with

beast folk. In the “House of Pain”, Moreau tortures numerous beasts human forms but

fails to endow them with intellect. One day, a puma, his experimental object, escapes from his

bloody hands. This time the hunting sees the puma kill Moreau, the Master. Moreau’s death

gives rise to the reversion of the beast people, leaving the protagonist Prendick no choice but

to return to civilization which he hates just the same.

The criticism of Frankenstein and The Island of Doctor Moreau constitute an extremely

sharp contrast. Although Frankenstein came out in 1818, it didn’t attract much scholarly

interest until the 1980s. Now it has been reviewed to the fullest length and has also been

adapted dozens of movies and plays.

Yet Wells’s works, as Virginia Woolf said in Modern Fiction, amount to “the great clod of

clay that has got itself mixed up with the purity of his inspiration” (Woolf 1984:147). Since the

birth of The Island of Doctor Moreau in 1896, critics have seemed to play safe in the overview

of Wells’s writings or in the review of those famous pieces, leaving this particular scientific

2

romance barely touched, not to mention its obvious kinship with Frankenstein, the first

complete science fiction over half a century ago. As a matter of fact, Wells himself once

asserted his science stories ‘belong to a class of writing which includes the story of

Frankenstein” (Wells 2001:252).

In H. G. Wells: The Critical Heritage, Patrick Parrinder points out the ubiquitous parallel

between the two novels in theme and plot, but he pauses there and goes no further. Many other

researchers refer to the connection but do even less work than Parrinder. Still, one scholar

Steven Lehman in Children’s Literature Review approaches both works from the motif of “the

motherless child”, which renders a new insight with the combination of feministic and

psychoanalytic readings. Yet its focus on the fact that the birth of monster and beast has no

female participation lacks an essential view of their intrinsic relationship.

Relatively speaking, studies carried out by Chinese critics are scarce. One Master’s thesis

entitled “An Ethical Analysis of American and British Science Fiction” chooses both works as

the major objects of study to reveal the conflicts between the morality of the character and the

ethics of the age. The elaborate discussion of each work from the perspective of ethics falls

the cliché of moral preaching, which obviously demands an invigorating force to hold

water.

Intrigued by the similar themes like “mad scientists” often employed by Mary Shelley and

H. G. Wells, some scholars touch upon Frankenstein and Wells’s other science fiction. Fran

Collyer is one of them with his article making Frankenstein meet “the invisible man”, though

in the discussion of science, medicine and invention. Collyer’s effort deserves attention in that

she makes a diachronic investigation from Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and

Mr. Hyde to The Invisible Man, and ingeniously looks their intricacies.

When it comes to the individual survey of two novels, a large variety of materials are

available at home and abroad, especially of Frankenstein. Its approaches are many and varied.

The feminist interpretations undertaken by renowned critics like Gilbert and Gubar in

Madwoman in the Attic, Knoepflmacher in “Thoughts on the Aggression of Daughters” (1979),

and Mary Poovey in The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer show Frankenstein as an attack

on patriarchal family. Critics like Katherine Hill-Miller, Anca Vlasopolos and William Veeder

achieve the psychological depth with the discovery of oedipal issue, male womb envy and

3

incest in Frankenstein.

In China, criticism tend to concentrate on the mythological or narrative techniques of the

text, such as Weifang Li’s “The Art of Narration in Frankenstein” (2005) which explores the

unique narrative features and clever arrangement of episodes, and Shiqin Ruan’s Master’s

thesis “Submission and Subversion: A Gendered Narrative Study of Frankenstein”(2006)

which investigates Frankenstein from a gendered narrative perspective with the submission to

convention of the epistolary writing and the subversion of masculinity.

Interested in the personal history of Mary Shelley, Harold Bloom and Ellen Moers Bloom

have done plenty of life studies. Bloom edits a collection of essays named Mary Shelley and

unfolds Mary Shelley’s mythmaking in a comprehensive way. Ellen Moers in Literary Women

deems Frankenstein as a birth myth built around Shelley’s own experiences of pregnancy and

being a mother, and regards it as a reflection of Shelley’s ambivalence about motherhood.

In terms of comparative studies of Frankenstein, a great many scholars associate it with

those previous and following literary works since it pioneers the entire gothic and science

fiction tradition. Among them, Madwoman in the Attic serves as the most insightful one where

the two female critics trace Frankenstein to Milton’s Paradise Lost, revealing the

interchangeable roles of both Frankenstein and his creature as Adam, Eve and Satan. The

literary allusion of Paradise Lost thus provides a further explanation of their intertextuality.

Andrew Griffin, in a different light, makes a comparison between Frankenstein and Jane Eyre,

considering the symbolic meanings of “fire” and “ice” images in both novels. The essay

innovatively demonstrates the functions of two symbols in theme representation. In addition,

Spivak’s imperialistic interpretation of three female texts including Frankenstein, Jane Eyre,

and Wide Sargasso Sea offers a political insight Frankenstein and empowers the text in

the intertextual analysis of three women’s masterpieces. The German critic Preu?? Karin,

however, explores beyond nations the question of madness in the works of Mary Shelley

and E.T.A. Hoffmann, a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror against the backdrop

of Romanticism in Europe.

Studies of editions and versions of Frankenstein movies and plays have been

mushrooming. Some researchers take interest in varied versions of Frankenstein published in

1818 and 1831, and disclose the literal changes as a testament of Mary Shelley’s tendency to

4

be more conservative and reserved in her later years. The analyses of Frankenstein-related

plays and movies mainly done by critics abroad elevate the classic to a new level of popularity

and leave enormous room for readers’ imagination and interpretation. In fact, Frankenstein has

become a cultural icon attached with meanings of oddity, monstrosity, and creativity in

western world. Therefore, it is through the continuous innovation and reconstruction of the

gothic masterpiece that Frankenstein possesses its eternal charm.

The Island of Doctor Moreau, on the other hand, has not been interpreted in such a

full-scale manner. Despite that, it attracts curious eyes. The novel has been read as a satire of

religion (Gorman Beachamp), a fable of the immorality of science (R.D. Haynes), and a

critique of imperialism (Cyndy Hendershot and Bari J. Gold). Some scholars like Nicoletta

Vallorani try to combine the creation myth with Darwinian biology. Roger Bozzetto asserts

that Moreau’s relationship to the beast can be deemed as “a metaphor for civil society and its

hierarchization” (Bozzetto 1993:40) as well as the reexamination of imperialism. Together

with Roger Bowen, he emphasizes the significance of realistic details in the novel and other

narratives set on the island. However, Elaine Showalter in Sexual Anarchy sees Moreau as a

typical example of a genre fashioned by male British authors of the late 19th century: the

“fin-de-siècle male quest romance” (Wells 2009:13) that puts adventure stories in a bachelor

world without female presence. Moreover, J.R. Hammond (1993) approaches the story as a

Swiftian parable based on the allusion of Gulliver’s Travels.

Perhaps the most appropriate readings of the scientific romance come from two passages

written by Wells himself before he set about writing Moreau: “The Province of Pain” and “The

Limits of Individual Plasticity”. Both articles offer the theoretical frame for the novel with the

idea that pain is needless and the wish that the moulding of any living thing “the beautiful

or the grotesque” (Wells 2009:276) is credible some day. Here the science-humanity

interaction featured in the novel is carefully illustrated. Making a complementary study,

Sherryl Vint broadens the vision from the animalism to the uplift universe, stressing the subtle

and lasting influence of the human-animal boundary.

This thesis, therefore, will concentrate on how Frankenstein and The Island of Doctor

Moreau can communicate with each other beyond time, space and the visionary power of

Shelley and Wells. Stemming from the core of science writings, the thesis will tackle with this

5

deeply-rooted classical motif. In the meantime, how the protagonists tangled in their

overreaching creations are characterized by the mother and the father of science fiction will be

analyzed and decoded, which will serve as the integral body of the discussion.

The first and foremost to consider is the confrontation between mad scientists and three

perennial subjects including nature, ethics and religion. As scarred incarnation of Mother

Nature, the monster and the beast folk tend to be discarded and ruled by science. Their

submission first and subversion then demonstrate that nature can be both a preserver and

destroyer. When they conduct the manufacturing process, Frankenstein and Moreau barely

take morality account but indulge in their ambition to assume the place of God. The

ghastly creatures they create have a tint of humanity, but the latent animalism of humans

emerges every now and then. Both works hence underline the fine distinction between human

nature and bestiality. Meanwhile, the parody of the organized religion and atheism weighs so

much on the minds of mad scientists that they hardly have trouble with religion. The next part

explores ways the two scientists set up relations with other roles and surroundings. Characters

in Frankenstein constitute complex interrelations where Frankenstein, Walton, and Clerval

make a Trinity. In The Island of Doctor Moreau, Moreau, Montgomery, and Prendick act as

doubles to each other as well. For writing techniques in service of characterization, Mary

Shelley, the romanticist personage, and H. G. Wells, the realist speaker, excel in symbolism

and allusion. Omnipresent in both works are symbols of fire and water, and mythological and

literary allusions. The settings, the desolate icy North Pole and the desert island in Pacific

Ocean, are tainted with an intensely gothic ambience of isolation, alienation and apocalypse.

The astoundingly similar thematic representation in such distant works eventually demands an

answer. Therefore, the thesis will then attribute the birth of mad scientists’ myths to possible

causes including the social and literary environment and the unusual life experiences of two

writers. The combination of all these factors foster an intricate kinship between the greatest

science fiction works whereas they retain some differences at the same time.

Given the general belief that science fiction derives from Frankenstein, placing the two in


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