Traversées, hybridations grotesques et inquiétante étrangeté dans The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) de H. G. Wells : la mort de l’humain ?

Edward Prendick, the protagonist and narrator of The Island of Dr Moreau, embarks on a hazardous and terrifying crossing (between England and an unknown Pacific island) that will lead to other types of crossings – biological, taxonomical, psychological, ontological and generic ones. They will irretr...

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Main Author: Françoise DUPEYRON-LAFAY
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA) 2016-12-01
Series:E-REA
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/erea/5554
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author Françoise DUPEYRON-LAFAY
author_facet Françoise DUPEYRON-LAFAY
author_sort Françoise DUPEYRON-LAFAY
collection DOAJ
description Edward Prendick, the protagonist and narrator of The Island of Dr Moreau, embarks on a hazardous and terrifying crossing (between England and an unknown Pacific island) that will lead to other types of crossings – biological, taxonomical, psychological, ontological and generic ones. They will irretrievably make him a stranger to himself. Wells’s evolutionist work, like Dr Moreau’s laboratory, actually explores the problematic concepts of civilization and humanity and shows how permeable the frontiers between humans and animals are and how they insidiously dissolve, so that the humanization of animals (by Moreau) is paralleled by the (spontaneous) animalization of humans, a darkly disturbing form of regression that represents the return of the repressed, and one of the modalities of the Freudian unheimlich. Biological and ontological hybridity goes along with literary hybridity in this angst-ridden narrative that fuses science, realism and the fantastic, collapsing binary oppositions and resting on an ever-shifting in-between, grotesque logic. The island on which Prendick is compelled to live for months, instead of leading to (re)construction as in traditional utopias, is an anarchic tropical jungle that deconstructs and shatters all his norms and certainties, reflecting his wild and alien(ated) state.
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spelling doaj-art-f00f758bb1784ff39c0be05a5e0b65cf2025-01-09T12:54:42ZengLaboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA)E-REA1638-17182016-12-0114110.4000/erea.5554Traversées, hybridations grotesques et inquiétante étrangeté dans The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) de H. G. Wells : la mort de l’humain ?Françoise DUPEYRON-LAFAYEdward Prendick, the protagonist and narrator of The Island of Dr Moreau, embarks on a hazardous and terrifying crossing (between England and an unknown Pacific island) that will lead to other types of crossings – biological, taxonomical, psychological, ontological and generic ones. They will irretrievably make him a stranger to himself. Wells’s evolutionist work, like Dr Moreau’s laboratory, actually explores the problematic concepts of civilization and humanity and shows how permeable the frontiers between humans and animals are and how they insidiously dissolve, so that the humanization of animals (by Moreau) is paralleled by the (spontaneous) animalization of humans, a darkly disturbing form of regression that represents the return of the repressed, and one of the modalities of the Freudian unheimlich. Biological and ontological hybridity goes along with literary hybridity in this angst-ridden narrative that fuses science, realism and the fantastic, collapsing binary oppositions and resting on an ever-shifting in-between, grotesque logic. The island on which Prendick is compelled to live for months, instead of leading to (re)construction as in traditional utopias, is an anarchic tropical jungle that deconstructs and shatters all his norms and certainties, reflecting his wild and alien(ated) state.https://journals.openedition.org/erea/5554realismunheimlichhybridityMoreauPrendickisland
spellingShingle Françoise DUPEYRON-LAFAY
Traversées, hybridations grotesques et inquiétante étrangeté dans The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) de H. G. Wells : la mort de l’humain ?
E-REA
realism
unheimlich
hybridity
Moreau
Prendick
island
title Traversées, hybridations grotesques et inquiétante étrangeté dans The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) de H. G. Wells : la mort de l’humain ?
title_full Traversées, hybridations grotesques et inquiétante étrangeté dans The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) de H. G. Wells : la mort de l’humain ?
title_fullStr Traversées, hybridations grotesques et inquiétante étrangeté dans The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) de H. G. Wells : la mort de l’humain ?
title_full_unstemmed Traversées, hybridations grotesques et inquiétante étrangeté dans The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) de H. G. Wells : la mort de l’humain ?
title_short Traversées, hybridations grotesques et inquiétante étrangeté dans The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) de H. G. Wells : la mort de l’humain ?
title_sort traversees hybridations grotesques et inquietante etrangete dans the island of dr moreau 1896 de h g wells la mort de l humain
topic realism
unheimlich
hybridity
Moreau
Prendick
island
url https://journals.openedition.org/erea/5554
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