The Daughter of Doctor Moreau

In 1871, Carlota Moreau lives with her father, Dr. Moreau, at the hacienda Yaxaktun. She has a chronic illness and requires weekly treatments to stay healthy. Dr. Moreau's experiments involve the creation of human-animal hybrids. Carlota spends much of her time with two hybrids named Cachito and Lupe, as well as the mayordomo Montgomery.

By 1877, Moreau's financial situation is precarious. The hacienda's owner, Hernando Izalde, is losing faith that Moreau's research is a good investment. Hernando's son Eduardo visits Yaxaktun with his cousin Isidro. After a brief courtship, Eduardo proposes to Carlota. Moreau approves, hoping that this will secure his finances. Isidro disapproves, and sends Montgomery to tell Hernando.

Hernando arrives to prevent the marriage. Carlota strikes Hernando; she grows claws and hisses at him. Hernando fires Moreau and tells him to vacate the hacienda. Montgomery forces the three Izalde men to leave at gunpoint, but they promise to return with more men. Moreau reveals that Carlota is a hybrid. She does not truly need her weekly injections; he has been drugging her in order to keep her docile and to keep her jaguar traits submerged. Carlota angrily shoves Moreau, injuring him.

Carlota releases the hybrids; most of them choose to seek shelter with nearby Mayan rebels. The Izaldes return. Eduardo promises that he will still take Carlota as his mistress, but she rejects him. Montgomery and Lupe assist the other hybrids in escaping, then return for a final confrontation. Isidro, Dr. Moreau, and Hernando are all killed. In her anger, Carlota's jaguar traits emerge; she and Montgomery work together to kill Eduardo.

Montgomery and Carlota blame all of the deaths on rebels. With her inheritance, Carlota promises to build a safe home for the surviving hybrids. Montgomery leaves to search for them, but promises to return.

According to D. Harlan Wilson of the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau re-examines the views of H. G. Wells. Wilson writes that "looking backward at Wells becomes increasingly difficult given the white male ethos that utterly dominates his oeuvre". Many of his novels "see him project Englishness onto the entire world", resulting in a colonization of those fictional worlds.^[1]

Wilson writes that Moreno-Garcia utilizes religion to explore themes of control. Moreau often gives sermons in which he tells the hybrids that their pain is a gift. This evokes sympathy in the reader. By the end of the novel, Carlota rejects the view of God as a vengeful deity and adapts a worldview more compatible with panentheism.^[1]

Wilson also writes that the theme of patriarchy is most exemplified by the subplot involving Carlota's romance with Eduardo. Initially, she is naive and feels that she loves Eduardo. As she becomes more mature, she realizes that Eduardo sees her "as a doll to carry around". When Moreau stops giving Carlota the injections, her animal nature emerges, "which is also a movement from the culture of her father’s estate to a state of primal nature." After Moreau's death, she is able to "step into her father's role" and kill Eduardo, becoming the hybrids' savior instead of their tormentor. Wilson believes that in feminist science fiction, "culture (especially technological violence) [is] coded as male and nature [is] coded as female."^[1]

The novel is divided into three parts and thirty-one chapters. The parts take place between 1871 and 1877. The chapters alternate between the points of view of Carlota and Montgomery. The story is told with third person narration.^[1]