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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Chapter 3: The Strange Face
Explanation and Analysis—Anti-Blackness:
Anti-Blackness, and paranoia about racial categories, is a motif throughout the novel, showing the prevalence of theories of scientific racism when Wells wrote. An early instance of anti-Blackness occurs in Chapter 3, when Prendick meets M'ling:
The black face thus flashed upon me startled me profoundly. It was a singularly deformed one. The facial part projected, forming something dimly suggestive of a muzzle, and the huge half-open mouth showed as big white teeth as I had ever seen in a human mouth. His eyes were bloodshot at the edges, with scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils. There was a curious glow of excitement in his face.
Although the novel's central question is about the distinction between humans and animals, this question is tied in with the scientific racism of Wells's day. Prendick does not yet know that M'ling is one of the Beast Folk. Here, he expresses horror at the way M'ling's face looks. Much of the language evokes racist stereotypes about Black people. The image of a dark-skinned man with large "projected" features and big white teeth would have been familiar to readers from racist paraphernalia that was highly popular in the 19th century. Chromolithography, a technology for reproducing images in color, became widely available by the middle of the century. Racist caricatures meant to dehumanize Black people began appearing in ads for household products like soap, and on household items themselves, such as plates, playing cards, and more. Decorating their homes with these racist images, white people were often more familiar with the stereotypes than with the faces of actual Black people. By drawing on these stereotypes in his description, Prendick codes M'ling as Black. Although Prendick remembers M'ling's face pushing the limits of what he could recognize as human, he does not have any idea at this point in the novel that M'ling actually is a vivisected animal. Instead, Prendick seems to ascribe M'ling's inhuman features to his Blackness. By using anti-Blackness to describe how unsettling M'ling's face is, Prendick clues the reader in that there is something off about this character.
Anti-Blackness is even more explicit in some places in the novel. Later, in Chapter 14, Moreau describes the Ape Man as
a fair specimen of the negroid type[.]
Moreau is not only drawing a racist parallel between apes and Black people, but he is also acting (in his mind) modest. He has created a "specimen" of "the negroid type" as opposed to the human type. Scientific racism held that white people were a more evolved form of humans than Black people. To Moreau, a fully successful attempt at creating a human out of an animal would mean making a white person. A half success, to him, is making a Black person (or someone he believes resembles a Black person). The Ape Man himself is only capable of basic speech and, once again, resembles a racist caricature of Blackness rather than an actual Black person.
Related Themes:
Chapter 14: Dr. Moreau Explains
Explanation and Analysis—Anti-Blackness:
Anti-Blackness, and paranoia about racial categories, is a motif throughout the novel, showing the prevalence of theories of scientific racism when Wells wrote. An early instance of anti-Blackness occurs in Chapter 3, when Prendick meets M'ling:
The black face thus flashed upon me startled me profoundly. It was a singularly deformed one. The facial part projected, forming something dimly suggestive of a muzzle, and the huge half-open mouth showed as big white teeth as I had ever seen in a human mouth. His eyes were bloodshot at the edges, with scarcely a rim of white round the hazel pupils. There was a curious glow of excitement in his face.
Although the novel's central question is about the distinction between humans and animals, this question is tied in with the scientific racism of Wells's day. Prendick does not yet know that M'ling is one of the Beast Folk. Here, he expresses horror at the way M'ling's face looks. Much of the language evokes racist stereotypes about Black people. The image of a dark-skinned man with large "projected" features and big white teeth would have been familiar to readers from racist paraphernalia that was highly popular in the 19th century. Chromolithography, a technology for reproducing images in color, became widely available by the middle of the century. Racist caricatures meant to dehumanize Black people began appearing in ads for household products like soap, and on household items themselves, such as plates, playing cards, and more. Decorating their homes with these racist images, white people were often more familiar with the stereotypes than with the faces of actual Black people. By drawing on these stereotypes in his description, Prendick codes M'ling as Black. Although Prendick remembers M'ling's face pushing the limits of what he could recognize as human, he does not have any idea at this point in the novel that M'ling actually is a vivisected animal. Instead, Prendick seems to ascribe M'ling's inhuman features to his Blackness. By using anti-Blackness to describe how unsettling M'ling's face is, Prendick clues the reader in that there is something off about this character.
Anti-Blackness is even more explicit in some places in the novel. Later, in Chapter 14, Moreau describes the Ape Man as
a fair specimen of the negroid type[.]
Moreau is not only drawing a racist parallel between apes and Black people, but he is also acting (in his mind) modest. He has created a "specimen" of "the negroid type" as opposed to the human type. Scientific racism held that white people were a more evolved form of humans than Black people. To Moreau, a fully successful attempt at creating a human out of an animal would mean making a white person. A half success, to him, is making a Black person (or someone he believes resembles a Black person). The Ape Man himself is only capable of basic speech and, once again, resembles a racist caricature of Blackness rather than an actual Black person.
Related Themes:
Chapter 21: The Reversion of the Beast Folk
Explanation and Analysis—Cannibalism:
Cannibalism, and the threat of cannibalism, is a motif throughout the novel, used to distinguish between the ideas of civilized and animalistic behavior. It first appears in Chapter 1, when Prendick nearly must resort to cannibalism to survive after the Lady Vain's shipwreck. He is reluctant. The only thing that saves him is that the two other men get in a fight over who will be eaten, and both of them fall overboard. This fate nearly leaves Prendick to die of starvation—he is only saved by Montgomery. Despite his close brush with death, Prendick also conveys a sense of relief that he doesn't have to eat another human.
By the end of Chapter 21, the Beast Folk have so descended into their animal selves that they eagerly eat the human remains Prendick tips out of a boat that washes up on shore. This practice is horrifying to Prendick:
When I saw them approaching those wretched remains, heard them snarling at one another, and caught the gleam of their teeth, a frantic horror succeeded my repulsion. I turned my back upon them, struck the lug, and began paddling out to sea. I could not bring myself to look behind me.
Prendick's horror at the idea of humans as food is connected to the colonial backdrop of the novel. European colonists, such as Christopher Columbus, depicted many of the people they colonized as cannibals. The practice of eating human flesh horrified Europeans. Highly exaggerated depictions of colonized peoples as cannibals helped colonizers justify violence and the imposition of European cultural norms on many societies outside continental Europe. European "civilization," which rejected the idea of cannibalism, was considered (by Europeans themselves) to have advanced beyond this practice.
The theory of evolution was developed in conversation with this idea of European "civilization" as more advanced than civilizations that were seen as "cannibalistic." Darwinian evolution was the latest in a long line of anthropological theories that white people used to claim that Black people and other people of color from colonized places were less developed forms of humans than people of European descent. In the wake of Darwin's theory, popular racial categories were further reified by scientific racism as stepping stones between animal and human on the evolutionary spectrum. Cannibalism was mapped onto people of color and used as evidence that they were more animalistic than white people. Prendick's fear of cannibalism, then, is fear not only of his base animal instincts, but also of the breakdown of racial categories. If he lives in a society with the Beast Folk, and they practice cannibalism, his distance from cannibalism and his proximity to whiteness become less stable than he thought they were. By refusing to look back at the Beast Folk eating the corpses, Prendick holds himself apart from them and clings to the white European identity that he believes is integral to his humanity.
Related Themes:
