The Daughter of Doctor Moreau

Carlota’s burgeoning sexual relationship with Eduardo highlights the nuances of her innocence—she is both freer and more naive as a result of her unusual upbringing. Carlota takes Eduardo at his word, which contrasts with Montgomery’s more worldly suspicions; Doctor Moreau has carefully cultivated a deep obedience and deference to him in Carlota, and as a result she transfers some of this reverence and trust to the first man she develops romantic feelings for: Eduardo. By keeping Carlota in almost complete isolation and not exposing her to broader social influences, Doctor Moreau has raised his daughter to be vulnerable, and easily manipulated by both him and other men.

Simultaneously, Carlota’s immersion in the natural, secluded landscape of Yaxaktun—in tune with her own body and free from gendered social constraints—leaves her able to experience desire for Eduardo without shame and to give herself the freedom to explore her burgeoning sexuality. Earlier, as Carlota first initiates physical contact with Eduardo, she thinks to herself, “ladies should be meek […] yet she raised one hand to grasp the lapel of his coat” (140). When he touches her, Carlota reflects that “he was pulling at a seam and she was about to come undone” (171). The metaphor of fabric being pulled apart alludes to the act of undressing. As a key trop of the coming-of-age arc, Carlota’s sexual awakening with Eduardo represents an important moment of transition to independence. The removal of Carlota’s clothes reflects the discarding of her previous identity as a docile young girl who relied solely on her father.

Carlota’s exploration of her sexuality marks her transition into maturity, developing the theme of Innocence and Experience. It also empowers her to begin to think more critically about her relationship to her father; while Carlota’s marriage would mean remaining legally and socially subservient to a man, it also represents stepping out from under her father’s control. While Montgomery worries that Carlota is overestimating the autonomy she would have as a married woman, this transitional stage highlights the limitations placed on Carlota as a woman existing within a patriarchal system: She can only access power by influencing a man, not by claiming it in her own right.

Carlota’s increasing desire for autonomy escalates the tension between her and her father, especially when she begins to pressure Doctor Moreau to give her access to the formulas that supposedly keep her and the hybrids healthy. As Carlota reclaims her body as a site of pleasure and as something she can freely give to others, she craves the autonomy of keeping her body healthy without being reliant on her father. She argues with her father, explaining that “we are all dependent on you, and you’ve said yourself that I’m no longer a child” (153), reflecting an increasingly skeptical and critical perspective toward a man whom she previously obeyed without a second thought. The connection between dependence on Moreau and access to the formula suggests that the power dynamics at Yaxaktun function as an allegory for other systems of exploitation. A key step in exerting Power and Dominance Over the Vulnerable, is limiting access to information and education. For example, enslaved individuals in the United States were not legally allowed to learn to read—also a typical tenet of colonialism. By withholding the information Carlota seeks, Moreau clings to a singular form of power by making sure Carlota and the hybrids believe that they cannot exist without him and his special knowledge.

While Carlota increasingly chafes at her father’s attempts to subdue and control her, a parallel subplot reveals the hybrids’ growing resentment and rebellion. Cachito draws inspiration from the Indigenous rebels and other workers who flee from intolerable conditions: “[I]f they can, who is to say we couldn’t get away?” (144). Moreno-Garcia incorporates socio-historical context to situate the experiences of the hybrids within a broader struggle for justice and self-governance. In 1877, slavery had only been recently abolished in the United States (1865), and in Mexico and surrounding countries, various systems of indentured and exploitative labor existed and could be legally enforced. Because the hybrids are viewed as an economically significant labor force, and also because Moreau sees himself as having a divine right to their obedience and subservience, the possibility that they could rise up and assert their independence poses a significant threat of social disturbance and violence.

The burgeoning relationship between Carlota and Eduardo quickly reveals the racialized prejudice of a hierarchical system of power. Even though she is known to be illegitimate and the daughter of a working-class woman, Carlota is initially treated with respect because Doctor Moreau treats her as a legitimate daughter. Isidro, and later Hernando Lizalde, however, quickly make it clear that they do not see Carlota as an acceptable marriage prospect for a wealthy and upper-class young man; Isidro tells Montgomery that “she’s a bastard girl […] and she’s dark. Pretty, but dark” (161). Carlota is simultaneously exoticized and shamed for having physical markers of an Indigenous heritage. She is presented as desirable, but unworthy of becoming Eduardo’s wife.

Isidro’s suspicions about Carlota foreshadow the revelation that Carlota is a hybrid. Carlota’s identity as a hybrid has already been signaled through her liminal positioning: She is part European, she is illegitimate, but the daughter of an upper-class man, and she is both sheltered and free. The information that Carlota is partly animal and partly human reflects all the ways in which she has been positioned as not truly fitting perfectly into any identity. It also hints at the stereotypical portrayal that sexual desire and assertiveness, especially in women, as animalistic traits; Carlota’s identity as a hybrid is revealed alongside information that she has had sex with Eduardo prior to being married to him, and she is simultaneously shamed for both—reactions from Lizalde, Isidro, and Eduardo demonstrate their disgust and disdain, including calling Carlota “an abomination” (195).

The revelation that Carlota is a hybrid, and especially her lashing out against Lizalde, introduces tension and the threat of violence into the text, increasing suspense and the pace of the rising action of the plot. Lizalde threatens to “grab those hybrids […] use them to kill the Indians that have been bothering us, and then punish [Moreau] thoroughly” (197), pointing to the connection he perceives between violence and oppression; he wants complete power and control. This conflict sets Lizalde and Moreau in opposition to one another as two men who each believe they are entitled to complete power and control over their domains.