On the Origin of Species

On the Origin of Species enters Poor Things as one of the books Harry Astley uses to argue against Bella Baxter’s hope that people can end the cruelty by which the healthy trample the helpless. Its significance in this scene lies in the role Astley assigns it: evidence, alongside two other works, for the impossibility of changing that order.

Place in Astley’s Argument

During the journey from Alexandria to Gibraltar, Astley gives Bella three books: Malthus’s Essay on Population, On the Origin of Species, and Winwood Reade’s Martyrdom of Man. He says they prove that the cruelty Bella opposes cannot be ended. The passage presents this as Astley’s use of the books, not as a direct account of the scientific argument of On the Origin of Species.

Bella’s Response

Bella says she wants neither Astley’s bitter wisdom nor him, except as an enemy, and rejects the conclusion that people must continue living by trampling the helpless. The books make her head ache, but their presence sharpens the disagreement: Astley treats them as support for resignation, while Bella insists that the possibility of change is a moral question. She is changing the dressing on his hand when he tells her his wife died a year earlier and asks whether she is legally married to Duncan Wedderburn.