From degeneration fear at the fin de siècle

Herbert George Wells' "The Iceland of Dr. Moreau" is a true genre classics in the field of stress literature. That does not mean that "Moreau" be reduced to mere tension effects and elements of the morbid - however this was late 1897 quite the case.

But "Moreau" meets the highest literary claims, because in addition to the engrossing narrative history is above all a veritable smorgasbord intertextual, from Shakespeare's "Tempest" on Kipling's Jungle Book to Defoe's "Robin Crusoe".

Edward Prendicks shipwreck leads him on an island full of terrible creatures, on the Dr. Moreau - once controversial animal researchers in England - is on the loose. Its always all questions evasive assistant Montgomery and the strange beings M'ling complete the sinister troika. Prendick it will get even more to do with the naked fear of failure as experiments fatally.

In addition to this tense action of the text can look more deeply, very deeply, because it reveals a relatively pessimistic conception of humanity, by the degeneration - ie the inverse evolution - can go per se in every human vonstatten. Everyone can at any time to tear down its culture and become a wild beast.

Wells' text comes from the fin de siècle, a time of great cultural anxieties that rendered one hand, degeneration wild fantasies feed, but also contributed texts, gave rise to the zeitgeist, the strong moral criticism. The human image of Wells is quite marked ethically, is very modest and reduced to its morality, which distinguish him from the animal sole. If the course of world history Wells right. A true classic. Absolutely worth reading.