H. G. Wells and Monstrous Vegan Desires

Abstract

Chapter 2 focuses on the work of H. G. Wells and in particular his The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). The Beast People of Doctor Moreau manifest a Frankensteinian legacy through their monstrous veganism, iterating the four key traits of the monstrous vegan as identified in Chapter 1. Framed through a consideration of ‘vegansexuality’, this chapter considers the relationship between alimentary and sexual desire. Contextualized in relation to late-nineteenth-century anti-vivisection movements and Darwinian ideas, veganism, as ethical abstraction divorced from the corporeal body, is seen to result in a failure to acknowledge the reality of human desires and the inescapably cannibalistic nature of our relation to others. The veganism of the Beast People is associated with artificiality, as a linguistic appendage that must be continually recited. Veganism is also seen as a spectre of the future, a utopian aspiration corrupted by its contact with the animal body.