How does H.G.

Wells make Prendick’s experiences on Moreau’s

Island so terrifying?

This is an essay task that will test how well you can analyse the
novel so far. You need to show:
1. That you have understood the novel, its characters and plot
2. That you can analyse language imaginatively and in depth
3. That you can make connections, exploring how ideas link
together in powerful ways

In this essay, you must write about the following three points:
1. The island itself and its setting
2. The inhabitants of the island
3. Moreau and Montgomery
4. How the use of first-person narrative makes the novel more
terrifying.

A good essay will:

• Start with an introduction that
• Introduces the topics that the essay will cover
• Does not use the words ‘In the novel The Island of Dr
Moreau’ or ‘In this essay I will’
• Include four paragraphs, each one exploring three or four
short quotations in detail
• Finish with a conclusion which brings all the essay together
and gives an answer to the question

A good paragraph:

Moreau himself seems to be a terrifying man of exceptional cruelty and

strength, who will stop at nothing to achieve his scientific goals. Prendick’s
mention of a ‘flayed dog’ which was found at Moreau’s laboratory in England
demonstrates at the cruelty of his experiments, especially as the vivisection is
not explained and no justification is given for skinning an animal alive. Moreau
also seems possessed by his work, who says only that Prendick will ‘ruin the work
of a lifetime’ when he tries to prevent him carrying out more inhuman work on
the puma. What makes Moreau perhaps most threatening, though, is that he
lifted Prendick ‘as if he were a child’, suggesting that he possesses not only
great determination, but also almost superhuman powers. In comparison with
the drunken captain of the schooner, and the weak Montgomery, Moreau seems
to dominate the island like a god.