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The Island of Doctor Moreau - Q4: Montgomery
“This silly ass of a world,” he said. “What a muddle it all is. I haven't had any life. I wonder when it's going to begin.”
What's Montgomery's role in the story? He saves Prendick twice, but seems unable to save himself. Is he a human, an animal, or something in-between? How is he contrasted with M'ling, his alter-ego? How does he compare to Prendick? To Moreau?
Comments
As I said elsewhere, Montgomery is a parasite. He contributes nothing to anyone and exists only to drink. I think he's meant to show the bestial nature of some people, while M'ling shows how some "lesser beings" can become almost human (and I can't get past the colonialist subtext of all of this). It all ends with Montgomery corrupting all those around him and destroying himself in the process.
Moreau's not a person but a plot device. Prendick I think is in the next question.
Montgomery? His role is to get drunk and screw up everything he touches.
So why is he in the book? Would the book be better or worse if that character wasn't there?
It certainly wouldn't be the same.
Moreau is certainly a character. He has a personality and a character arc. He's a highly symbolic one, sure, but so was Gandalf - who actually had less of an arc, having never had a youth or a previous run-in with Society. Yet I never heard anyone say that Gandalf wasn't a character.
Montgomery is complex. He's certainly a failure, and seems to be willing to blame others. Why hasn't his life started? When is something going to happen? Is he questioning God's provenance? Montgomery is also our main view into things, at least early in the book. He saves Prendick - twice. He serves Moreau. He's certainly not useless to everyone. M'ling perhaps loves him? Accepts him? But he lacks perspective, is tied to the London of old no longer a part of it. He's not really any longer a human, but also not an animal. He lacks the ability to create agency for himself. Didn't Clash say that Wells thought people had to claw themselves out of their baser instincs? Well, here's a person who has suffered for his inability to do so. He's introduced in the second chapter, which is titled "The man who was going nowhere".
Right. Montgomery is - if any type - close to the classic dissolute British remittance man, who was paid money by his family to stay in exile, but not quite. A singularly useless person.
In modern terms (which Wells may or may not have thought helpful) Montgomery's failure is surely a failure to individuate. He is forever doing what others want or expect of him - this naturally brings him into places of conflict when two different people want two different things, but he seems neither to use the conflict to develop, nor to create his own personally defensible position. He seems to me a rather tragic figure, unable ever to come to a real crux.
Interesting - and was Wells not writing at the dawn of Liberalism, which recognizes and elevates the needs of the individual?
A good thought. I checked out when Dr Moreau was written - 1896 apparently. Freud and Jung were both alive at that stage, though most of Jung's work would happen later. However, their ideas were (obviously) built on earlier concepts, which they formalised in a therapeutic direction. Some of those influences would be German writers and thinkers such as Goethe (died 1832) or the Romantic poetry movement in England and Europe (late 18th and first half of 19th century).
So yes, I think it is entirely realistic that Wells is exploring in this fictional frame ideas which were also being propounded in a variety of other guises.