Discourse In Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis (1626) And H.g. Wells’s The Island Of Doctor Moreau (1896)

Résumé: The core of the present study is Discourse in Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis (1626) and Herbert George Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). Our research investigates the notion of science and discourse in the two travelogues. The aim behind this research is to explore the use of science in the two travelogues depending on their historical backgrounds; the late nineteenth century and the Renaissance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This helps us in establishing a link between the authors’ historical periods and their writings. We have relied on Norman Fairclough’s Language and Power (1989) and Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (1972) in order to analyse the discourse employed in the two works. In addition to Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (1998) to define the concepts and aspects of ideology, utopia and dystopia as a theoretical frameworks to accomplish our main objective. The results of our study reveal that the two authors used discourse to demonstrate the positive and negative usage of science. In addition, science is used by Solomon’s Elders to control natural phenomena and conquer nature in The New Atlantis, and by Dr. Moreau to dominate and torture animals through conducting painful trials for the sake of experience and self-satisfaction in The Island of Doctor Moreau.

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