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Comparing Dr. Moreau And The Beetle

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In two fin de siècle novels, H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) and Robert Marsh’s The Beetle (1897), sadism plays a central role. However, while The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Beetle both include characters that exemplify sadism, the novels differ greatly in the characters’ portrayals due to the sadistic characters’ gender. The sadistic Moreau is presented as Machiavellian tyrant. However, because Moreau’s gender aligns with ideas of gendered sadism, the novel does not portray him as degenerate, monstrous, nor ambiguous. In contrast, The Beetle tampers with the sadistic female body, which leads to doubt of her true sex and form and leaves her as an undecidable, degenerate monstrosity. The sadistic characters’ descriptions in The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Beetle …show more content…

A perplexing amalgamation of culture and nature led to the pathologizing of sexual perversion by 19th century “sexologists” (Peakman 1). Richard von Krafft-Ebing first introduced the term ‘sadism’ in his book Psychopathic Sexualis (1886). Sadism includes the experience of mental and physical suffering as pleasurable (Holguin 1285). Later defined as one of the “modern perversions” by Sigmund Freud, it was traditionally seen as existing within the male domain (Schaffner 182), and as a type of “male sexual cruelty” (Wayne 542). Furthering Krafft-Ebing’s work, Freud suggests that sadism’s “life preserving aggression” in males is natural and biologically determined (Holguin 1286). In contrast, masochism, essentially the opposite of sadism, can be seen as

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