History Literature / TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Upon escaping the island and returning to civilization, Prendick realizes he can no longer live among people for he can see that just like the hybrids, they too are prone to devolving to animalistic states of being.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Upon escaping the island and returning to civilization, Prendick he can no longer live among people for he can see that just like the hybrids, they too are prone to devolving to animalistic states of being.

* ImAHumanitarian: Moreau mentions that the monsters he create can mate and bear young, but the parents usually immediately eat their young after birth.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The House of Pain, Dr Moreau's dwelling where he surgically alters animals into men, by vivisection, without anesthetics.

* SavageWolves: Downplayed. There are several wolf people, but they do not seem to be as violent as the feline beasts.

* SavageWolves: There are several wolf people, but they do not seem to be as violent as the feline beasts.

* ShoutOut: Montgomery [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate studied]] on Gower Street in London, which is the street that Darwin lived on.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The House of Pain, Dr Moreau's dwelling where he surgically alters animals into men, by vivisection, without aenesthetics.

* MadScientist: Moreau.
** MadDoctor: He's doing all this as a way of practising surgical techniques, or so he claims. These techniques consist of vivisection. Without aenesthetics. It is hardly a wonder Moreau's house is called the [[MeaningfulName House of Pain]].

* MercyKill: Prendick shoots the Leopard-Man to save him from further operation.

* LaserGuidedKarma: Sometime after abandoning Prendick in a life boat near Moreau's island, Captain Davis' corpse is found in a lifeboat that washed up on the very island he wanted to get away from. His corpse is then eaten by the beast men, one of whom he aloud his men to abuse.
* LostAtSea

* KilledOffscreen: It is heavily implied the corpses in the life boat at the end of the book was Captain Davis and one of his crewmen.

* AxCrazy: Hyena-Swine.
* BearsAreBadNews: Averted. The bear man is one of the kindest and more helpful creatures on the island.

* EvilutionaryBiologist: Averted; Moreau is more concerned with perfecting his surgical techniques than their products. He even remarks that he could just as well have turned sheep into llamas as animals into humans; the latter was simply more artistically-satisfying to him.

* CatsAreMean: Moreau's final experiment, a puma woman, ends up killing him. The other beasts based on big cats tend to be the more savage ones, even compared to the wolf people. The biggest threat comes from a cross between a hyena and pig. This makes the three most threatening beast people all cats or cat relation [[note]]despite their appearance, hyenas are actually close relatives of felines and not canines[[/note]].

* {{Robinsonade}}

* TheXOfY

* CatsAreMean: Moreau's final experiment, a puma woman, ends up killing him. The other beasts based on big cats tend to be the more savage ones, even compared to the wolf people. The biggest threat comes from a cross between a hyena and pig. This makes the three most threatening beast people all cats.

* AssholeVictim: Captain Davis who apparently died a slow death in a lifeboat. Considering that he abandoned Prendick to a similar fate, it's hard to feel sorry for him

* EvilRedhead: Wells repeatedly mentions the fact that Captain Davis, the drunken, abusive schooner captain, has red hair. Admittedly Davis isn't so much "evil" as he is just a bully, but the repeated mentions of his hair colour brings him close to this trope.

* WasOnceAMan: The main character thinks this is whats going on, but finds out its actually the other way around, the creatures on the island were once animals, turned into men. Or something like it.

* CatsAreMean: Moreau's final experiment, a puma woman, ends up killing him.

* PigMan
* ThePlace

** MadDoctor: He's doing all this as a way of practising surgical techniques, or so he claims.

[[Film/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau It was adapted several times for the screen]]; the earliest was in 1932 as ''Film/IslandOfLostSouls'', starring Charles Laughton as the eponymous doctor. The most recent was released in 1996 (a full century after the book), with Creator/MarlonBrando as Moreau.

->"Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"
->"Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"
->"Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"
->"Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"
->"Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"
-->-- '''The Law'''

* CatsAreMean: Moreau's final experiment, a panther man, ends up killing him.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: While most adaptions of the story uses genetic engineering for Moreau's creations, the original novel actually uses vivisection, since it predates the discovery of genetics and DNA. Hence the House of Pain location in the novel, as the surgeries Moreau performs on his unwilling experiments are both unnatural and incredibly painful for the subjects.