During the late nineteenth-century, many people in London believed that technological advancements and the Industrial Revolution, could possibly solve many or all of humanity's problems. H. G. Wells, a devout man of science, supports this feasible view at the beginning of his novel The Time Machine, as the Time Traveller, a scientist, invents a machine that can travel in the fourth dimension, time. However, as the novel continues, the Time Traveller unfortunately discovers that the only thing that has progressed is England’s inequitable, nineteenth-century society. The depiction of society in the future is primarily a social criticism of nineteenth-century England, in The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells. Wells’ depiction of society in the future …show more content…
begins in the year 802701 A.D. Upon his arrival, the Time Traveller encounters two new species of human descent, called the Eloi and the Morlocks (Wells). The Time Traveller is first introduced to the Eloi, a peaceful, lethargic, unintelligent and childlike people that populate the surface of the earth. They are easily tired, not interested in intellectual pursuits, and have short attention spans (Bergonzi). The Eloi are weak, small in stature, delicate featured, clean, and dress in simple yet beautiful clothing. They play all day, feast on only fruit, and all sleep near to one another because of their fear of the Morlocks at night (Time). The complete opposite of the Eloi are the Morlocks, a belligerent, strong, predacious, primate-like “people” who live and have adapted physically to life beneath the earth’s surface. They have large, greyish-red eyes that are very sensitive to light, and whitish-grey, unpigmented skin and fur (Eisenstein). All their life they have worked and lived around machinery underground. The Morlocks are more technologically advanced than the Eloi, maintaining more vestige of human technology (Bergonzi). These two species have significantly different physical appearances, lifestyles, living environments, and intelligence levels, yet they both derive from the same ancestral line, human beings.
Eventually over time, humans evolved into two distinct species. The upper class had everything and the lower class had to work for them. The poor just worked all day, while the rich never worked a day in their life. Over time, both species adapted physically and mentally to their living and working conditions. The lack of interaction between the poor, lower class workers and the wealthy, upper class aristocrats eradicated interbreeding and created two distinct species, the Eloi and the Morlocks (Semansky). The Eloi and Morlocks may have once had a master-slave relationship, but now the Eloi were becoming useless and the Morlocks were gaining the upper hand …show more content…
(Parrington). London, England during the nineteenth-century, experienced many social, technological, and economical changes due to the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was the movement of change from an agricultural, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture. Many major technological inventions altered the ways in which manufacturing, agriculture, and trade were conducted. Some of the inventions and advancements that came out of this time period were: the telegraph, the steam engine, the telephone, the steamboat, photography, the airplane, railroads, and electricity. The Industrial Revolution also lead to London becoming one of the most powerful and wealthiest cities in the world. This monumental movement brought deep and lasting change to all classes of people. However, these drastic changes did not benefit all classes equally
(Eisenstein). During this time in London, the wealthy, upper class people benefitted the most from the Industrial Revolution. With the creation of new technologies and machines, mass-produced goods could be created and sold more inexpensively and quickly than ever before, promoting a growth in production and consumption. With this large increase in manufacturing and trade, the rich aristocrats who owned businesses became even more wealthy. The new tremendous amount of wealth generated from industrialization allowed the upper class to live more extravagant lives then they previously did. They lived luxurious and easy, job-free lives, pampered with servants and maids that did their housework, prepared their food and tea, and dressed them countless times throughout the day (Jonsson). They were able to afford all the finer luxuries in life such as, beautiful articles of clothing, different types of fruit,
The Industrial Revolution was the major advancement of technology in the late 18th and early 19th century that began in Britain and spread to America.The national and federal government helped the United States grow into a self reliant nation with improvements in transportation, technology, manufacturing and the growth of the population.
H.G. Wells' The Time Machine addresses this desire to escape. The unnamed Time Traveler himself does not necessarily have the desire to escape from Victorian life. He is wealthy and educated enough to spend his days creating a time machine to satisfy his desire to explore time. But escapism is addressed in his changing theories about the origin and nature of the Eloi and Morlocks, whom he encounters in his travels. Related to this theme of escape is the concept of progress not universally yielding good. The Time Machine speaks to the powerful late Victorian themes of escape and progress, painting a frightening picture of the dystopia that could result from the Victorians' ruthless exploitation of the working class during industrialization.
In The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveller first visits the year 802,701, where Wells begins to establish that humanity has split into two opposite and startling sub-species, the Eloi and the Morlocks, similar to “modern” humans. After his associations with the Eloi and finally outsmarting the Morlocks, the Time Traveller escapes millions of years into the future to a period devoid of human life, and once more after that to see the final devolution of man. With these experiences centuries into the future, it is clear Wells does not possess an optimistic outlook on his interpretations of the future, but rather one of regression. Wells’ idea that humanity is doomed to devolution and eventual extinction is shown through the
“The Time Machine” can be seen as Wells’s socialist warning of what will befall humanity if capitalism continues to exploit worker for the benefits of the rich.
The Industrial Revolution was the result of many interrelated changes that transformed society from agricultural communities into industrial ones. The most immediate changes on society because of this revolution were on the products that were produced, where, and how. Goods that were traditionally made in homes or small workshops began to be manufactured in large industrial factories. As a result, productivity and efficiency increased dramatically, thereby causing a radical shift in the long-established economies that existed at the time. The Industrial Revolution led to the growth of cities as people moved from rural areas to the city in order to find work. Marx believed that the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution overturned not only the traditional economies, but also society in general.
In conclusion, the industrial revolution brought many changes to Britain. The changes included the textile industry, the steam powered engines, which helped create steam-powered locomotives and steam boats. Because of this major improvement in the industrial revolution railroads began to sprout and was a more efficient way to transport goods and people across Britain. The Industrial Revolution no doubt brought rapid changes to people’s lives in Britain.
Time traveling, a concept known to modern man as inconceivable, but in The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells, this fathom of human fantasy has come to life. Wells entangles a unique blend of contrasting characters, conflicts of capitalist verses laborer divisions, and foreshadowing of the destruction of humanity to seem together this novel of visionary proportions. "The Time Machine is a bleak and sober vision of man's place in the Universe."(McConnell Pg.1581)
For many years, the well-known novelist, H.G. Wells has captivated the minds and imaginations of readers with his multiple best-selling books; The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The War of the Worlds. These selections however are not Wells’ most controversial novel. The Time Machine, written in 1895, is Wells’ most talked about work. Multiple different themes and various sides are seen to be taken within this novel, one of these main themes being the separation of classes. While the Morlock’s and the Eloi, in H.G. Wells’ novel; The Time Machine, play an extremely important role in distinguishing the future for this book, one has reason to believe that there is a broader underlying meaning for these two types of civilization. In fact, this underlying meaning is believed to relate back to Wells’ own personal life during the Victorian Period, in which the working and higher classes were at extreme differences towards each other, and where Wells, being a part of the middle class, felt and experienced firsthand; the clashing of these two divisions in Victorian society.
Time Travel has always struck close to the imagination of the minds. From H.G. Wells ' "The Time Machine" to blockbuster films like "Back to the Future" - for years, time travel was the stuff of science fiction and crazy-eyed mad men but as physicists approach the subject of time travel with new advances in scientific theories and equipment, the possibility of time travel has become a more legitimate field for scientific endeavours. This paper will argue the possibility of time travel and the positive effects that this discovery will bring forth to modern day society: technological advancements.
Herbert George (H.G.) Wells’ 1895 scientific romance novella, The Time Machine, is considered to be one of the forerunners of the science fiction genre. Whilst the story was not the first to explore the concept of time travel, it is quite significant for its pseudoscientific account of how time travel could perhaps occur, this interpretation has shown to be quite influential to numerous productions in both media and literature. Wells explores a number of themes throughout this novella, however there are three prominent ones, the relativity of time, social Darwinism and evolution, and capitalism. These themes explore concepts which are relevant to society and creates connections with the intended 19th century audience.
The Industrial Revolution was a time of great change in the world and changed the way many products were manufactured. Originating in England and Great Britain, its effects spread across the globe and influenced the way people lived and worked and lead to the modern world known today. While it did not always have positive effects, through imperialism, Britain’s Industrial Revolution brought about technological innovations that transformed the world and its economies.
The Time Machine is considered to be Wells’ finest work and is incidentally the one of the first novels, if not the first novel, to deal with the fantastical notion of time travel to such an extent. Since then time travel and ‘science fiction’ has become a beloved field amongst writers. The book was published in 1895 and it became an instant succes. Which is not strange when we look at the underlying subtext of ‘The Time Machine’. Though the main story is about time travelling, we can see that the story is not as unilateral as would seem on first sight. Wells has mixes the social and scientific interest of the Victorian time. He, like many of the nineteenth century sophists were influenced by the notion of evolution, was a great believer in Progress. ‘The modern mind, he said, sees the present life as but a preparation for the future and will unhesitatingly sacrifice the past to the future because it "sees the world as one great workshop, and the present is no more than material for the future, for the one thing that is yet destined to be" ("The Discovery of the Future," New York, 1914, p. 59)’ (Hausknecht p. 3)In ‘The Time Traveller’ Wells explores the possible issues of human progress, in other words: the decline of it. The novel reflects Wells’ own time where he warns the Victorians about the disastrous effects of capitalism and segregation of society into differential social classes whilst introducing them to the then new scientific and industrial ideas. He does this by removing the expected, fanciful utopian future or even a dystopian future. In the Time Traveller’s story there are no humans anymore. The only indication that we had ever lived are the weathered buildings on which plants have grown. The story is not actually told by the Time Traveller. The Narrator of our story is an unidentified person who happens to be one of the Time Traveller’s guests. We perceive the story in the way that the Narrator allows us
Time travel has always been an ambitious dream in science fiction. Writers such as H.G Wells not only kept their readers mesmerized by great novels such as “The time machine” but also introduced the idea of time travel in the imagination of their readers. Today time travel is not regarded as strictly science fiction. Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity permits a unique kind of time dilation that would ordinarily be called time travel. The theory states that, relative to a stationary observer, time appears to pass more slowly for fast-moving bodies. For example, a moving clock will appear to run slow; as a clock approaches the speed of light its hands will appear to nearly stop moving. So if one can move information from one point to another faster than light then according to special relativity, there will be an observer who sees this information transfer as allowing information to travel into the past.
story of a time traveler and his experience with time travel. The story was first published in 1895 by H.G. Wells. This is a great story because of the fascinating ideas it presents and the way the author has you asking yourself ‘what if?’.
Social and political class all play an important role in the everyday life of an average Human. Everyday society has stereotyped the different social classes so that they each have a certain image and a certain stature to uphold. This is no different from The Time Machine. The society that was presented in the future reflects upon that what exists between the more privileged upper class and the rough-lived working lower class. This upper class is depicted as the Eloi who benefit from the working class by devouring food and other good, yet do not need employment for themselves. On the other hand, the working class is represented by the Morlocks that are more monster and ape-like. The fact that they are more physically power proves that they are indeed hard workers and thus is a working class. This seemingly unbalanced separation of classes is seemingly flipped for that it seems that the Eloi only purpose is consumption. This puts power in the hands ...