Date of Award
Summer 8-7-2012
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Dr. Marilynn Richtarik
Second Advisor
Dr. LeeAnne Richardson
Third Advisor
Dr. Michael Galchinsky
Abstract
This thesis analyzes H. G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness within the context of nineteenth-century evolutionary theory. I explore how Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley used evolution by natural selection to develop differing explanations of the origins of ethics and how this impacted the place each scientist gave morality in civilization. By exploring how Huxley and Darwin understood morality to derive from the phenomena of sympathy and restrain, I illustrate how Wells’s and Conrad’s novellas interrogate these discourses of altruism.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/3096814
Recommended Citation
Anlicker, Christine D., "Evolution of Ethics in the Island of Doctor Moreau and Heart of Darkness." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2012.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/3096814