A Comparative Analysis of H.G. Wells’ Island Essay

H. G. Wells The Island of bear upon Moreau and Elie Wiesels Night atomic number 18 strikingly similar accounts of modern ferociousness and inmilitary personnelness that affect seemingly civilized societies. What is revealing however is that Wells novel is an entirely fictional build which proposes to analyze the effects of the advancement of science and technology in the absence of solid ethical principles, trance Wiesels work is an autobiographical account of the authors experiences in several c formerlyntration camps, during the Holocaust.The law of similarity surrounded by the experiences of the cardinal narrators points to the inherent savageness of adult male. A comparative analysis of the two works exposes hu public civilization as a myth rather than a reality. Wiesels grim, nightmarish experience in the concentration camp almost surpasses the horror of Wells fantastical island. Man is debunked as a savage, beast-like creature whose acts prove to be even more frightenin g and unimaginable than those of animals. The horrors produced by sophisticate Moreau and by Hitler atomic number 18 equally unbelievable.While animal behavior is characterized only by instinctual cruelty urged by the demand of survival, human cruelty exemplified by the experiments of Moreau and by Hitlers massacre of six million Jews, is at once more perilous and more disturbing. In man, the animal instincts are paired with reason and imagination, just as in the symbolic hybrids created by Moreau, and thus the potency of evil increases tremendously. The two works start forth from similar premises. The cruel and unprincipled experiments concocted by Doctor Moreau take place on a mysterious island with a symbolic name Nobles Isle.In order to improve human genetics, Moreau performs vivisections and different horrifying experiments on various animals, attempting to create a new, superior race of hybrids. His experiments are symbolic because they specify attention to mans double nature, as an animal and as a creature invest with reason. The islands seclusion allows the scientist to establish an empire of horrors. In Wiesels Night, the nightmare is also compressed into the one(a) and enclosed space of the concentration camp.The barbed wire that surrounds the camps from all sides and that bears the ironic warning sign of danger, label the boundaries of a limited and entrapping world where only the horrors are infinite We were caught in a trap, right up to our necks. The doors were nailed up the way back was finally cut off. The world was a cattle wagon hermetically sealed (Wiesel 30). Moreover, time itself is condensed into a single and prolonged night, an unending nightmare that knows no respite.Moreover, the similarity between Moreaus design of perfecting the human race and Hitlers project for exterminating the Jews and purifying the Aryan race, reveals the fact that man is prone to atrocities and inhuman acts that are much more terrifying than those of b easts. The hybrid race created by Moreau is a symbol of manhood in general and its proximity to savageness despite technological advancements and scientific progress, magic spell also being similar to the new breed beast like men created by the Holocaust.The thoroughgoing terror and dehumanizing physical suffering of the prisoners of the concentration camp, change them into savage beings that are limited to a hardly a(prenominal) basic instincts. The horrors that they have to endure are almost unbearable. The Jews are therefore rapidly transformed into beasts who tense to cling to the miserable and terrible brave outs they have. Hungered, beaten, separated from families and friends, the men and women lose their individuality and their human feelings.Gradually, as the horrors progress, they occasion so inured in the stupid life they lead that they no longer communicate or try to express themselves. Any trace of human feeling or dignity disappears from the men that are brought even lower than the animal condition Within a few seconds, we had ceased to be men (Wiesel 45). The real nightmare of permanent terror and sufferance, without the light of hope or comfort is increased by the Jews sensory faculty that they were being persecuted by fellow beings. As the narrative progresses, the horrors also increase.The thousands of Jews that live and work in crammed-up places sour walking skeletons. With scarcely enough food to sustain life and insufficient clothing to shield them from the run and with no treatment for their illnesses the remaining Jews survive only by a miracle. They are surrounded by death its threat blazes in the furnace of the crematories where the selected ones are taken, it piles up in the corpses that are ubiquitous in the camps, it takes the loved ones away and threatens their own emaciated bodies at any moment.The cruelties that these people suffer are beyond description and their endurance impressive. The author himself was only fiftee n years old at the time that he had to bear witness and to be a part of these horrors. His deep religious feeling and his faith are shaken forever by the black memory of the holocaust Never shall I forget those moments, which murder my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never (Wiesel 43).While the Jews are reduced to less than beastly conditions, their force of endurance is overwhelming. According to Wiesel, the suffering people gathered there were greater than God himself because of their ghostly strength that makes them pray even in these dire conditions. The image of the Jews sufferance is easily comparable to that of the beast-like creations of Doctor Moreau And the dwindling shreds of the humanity still startled me every now and then,a momentary recrudescence of speech perhaps, an unprovided for(predicate) dexterity of the fore-feet, a pitiful attempt to walk erect (Wells 159) .Significantly, the Jews as well as some other people had regarded Hitlers promise of exterminating an entire race of people as an impossible farce. The civilized man deems himself safe from extreme pain inflicted by another human being. The narrator himself believes at the beginning that postal code like what was rumored about the camps could be true in the middle of the twentieth century. The same disbelief surrounds Prendicks account of the scientific experiments on the island.The ultimate feeling that seizes both Prendick and Wiesel in front of these atrocities is the fact that they do not have the desire to return to mankind, despite their sufferance It is strange, but I felt no desire to return to mankind. I was only glad to be quit of the foulness of the Beast battalion (Wells 166). This emphasizes the fact that real cruelty is much more often witnessed in man than in animals. The two works describe the nightmarish experiences of the narrators.Entrapped alongside the direst human savagery, the Jews have no choice but to set back to it and expect their own end. Their endurance is obviously superhuman. As in The Island of Doctor Moreau, the liberation of the last Jews is brought by their revolt. This liberation however will never shake the curtain of the horrors that remain inscribed in report as a testimony to human savageness and its persistence in the modern world. ?Works CitedWells, H. G. The Island of Doctor Moreau. New York Signet Classics, 1996. Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York Holt McDougal, 1999.