The Daughter of Doctor Moreau

The narrative significance of Carlota’s status as a hybrid parallels a historical context that classified individuals via a racialized hierarchy. In Mexico, these categories included derogatory terms such as “mulatto” or “mestizo” (a word that literally means “mixed” in Spanish) used to designate those with Indigenous ancestry, whereas other regions including the United States, used additional terminology such as “octoroon” (which attempted to categorize people as having one-eighth percent Black heritage) to specify racial identity. A perspective that centers and privileges European identity and proximity to whiteness views individuals of African or Indigenous descent as lesser, producing language and terminology designed to position marginalized identities as “other” and exert Power and Dominance. Eduardo’s treatment of Carlota reflects the way that a man might plausibly have responded to a woman he learned had non-European heritage. Because of Carlota’s newly-revealed status as a hybrid, Eduardo excludes her from the possibility of being a wife or mother—the socially legitimate categories for a woman to occupy during the period of the novel. Once her true identity is revealed, Eduardo treats her as though she can only be a source of sexual gratification, telling her that “a mistress is cleaner and safer” (256).

The escalating violence in the final section of the novel positions the hybrids as freedom fighters or rebels, and highlights the violence inherent to colonialism and oppression. Moreau and Lizalde’s attempts at exploitation end up costing them their lives, but the hybrids also experience severe casualties. The hybrids also enact themes of displacement and diaspora, driven away from the home that has been a refuge for them. When the hybrids leave Yaxaktun, their experience symbolically mirrors the way in which colonialist exploitation can result in displacement—forcing individuals to leave the places that have historically been their homes. The alliance between the hybrids and the Mayan rebels strengthens the analogy. However, Moreno-Garcia also provides a nuanced perspective by exploring the complicity in violence and moral ambiguity often necessary for rebellion. Montgomery reflects that “Moreau had not been a god and Cumux [the leader of the Indigenous rebels] could not be divine, either” (269), revealing his overall mistrust of ideologies, political systems that exert Power and Dominance Over the Vulnerable.

The violence of the novel’s climax—including the deaths of many characters in rapid succession, including Doctor Moreau, Hernando Lizalde, and Eduardo Lizalde—creates a sense of upheaval that foreshadows a new beginning. Moreau’s death frees Carlota from the bonds of Paternal Abuse and Oppression. His dying words express his love for his daughter, revealing his true self just as Carlota’s true self has been revealed. Carlota recognizes the contradictory nature of her father— neither completely good nor completely evil, deeply fallible and misguided, but truly believing in his own goodness. The death of her father symbolically liberates Carlota. Only when he dies can she reconceptualize her identity.

Carlota’s external transformation into a jaguar after becoming enraged with Eduardo also signals her internal transformation between Innocence and Experience. As a young, upper-class woman, Carlota has been socialized to be docile, obedient, and deferential—previous comparisons have often highlighted her doll-like qualities. When Carlota taps into her rage for all the ways that she has been exploited and manipulated, she also taps into her true identity and strength. Far from someone’s puppet or property, Carlota is now fully embodied. As Carlota transforms and assumes predatory characteristics, she marvels that “it wasn’t an ailment and it wasn’t a defect, it was raw power that she’d seldom tasted. It was the mystery of her body” (292). Much like how she previously embraced her sexuality, Carlota embraces her strength and her anger this self-acceptance triggers a loss of carefully constrained behavior. In Mayan mythology, the jaguar represents strength and power, and sometimes even divinity. Carlota no longer needs a god-like father or omnipotent male figure to guide her; she can step into her own power, and the full truth of her complex identity.

Carlota cements her independence and autonomy by giving up the Moreau family name—a transition that symbolizes her freedom from her father’s legacy. As Carlota explains to Lupe, “I feel this way I may choose who I wish to be” (300). After her father’s death, Carlota envisions a new future in which she no longer daydreams about marriage or fixates on retaining Yaxaktun. Instead, she sees a new future where she can create a new, safe haven for herself and the other hybrids. Carlota sees this future as an explicit corrective to her father’s decisions, since “Dr. Moreau had helped himself. Carlota wishe[s] to help others” (300). As a hybrid who can “pass” as human, Carlota possesses a kind of privilege that the other hybrids will never have, but she wants to use that privilege responsibly, and create an egalitarian, supportive community.

The novel’s conclusion is both hopeful and ambiguous. The deaths of Moreau and Lizalde free up Carlota and the other hybrids to create a new community. However, that community has to be isolated and secluded from the rest of society. Integration is not presented as any kind of possibility. Carlota looks forward hopefully to being together with Montgomery and the other hybrids, but with a trace of tonal melancholy suggesting such a reunion isn’t certain. The tension created by Montgomery’s unrequited love and desire for Carlota is also not resolved, but she chooses to believe that they can sustain their friendship. Carlota’s vision at the end of the novel reclaims and subverts the Christian imagery that suffused much of her father’s ideology: “[T]he heaven they’d build would be true. For she had hope and she had faith” (304). Just as Carlota reimagines the kind of future she wants to build, she also reimagines her own spiritual paradigm, incorporating and reappropriating elements of her childhood past, making them new.