Lower Class People Of Wells's Time example essay topic

The novel "The time machine" was written to give the reader a vision into the author's view of the future; although bleak, this vision is presented realistically, whilst being profoundly farfetched. The use of this presentation leaves the reader wondering if all this could actually happen. It is clear from reading the novel that H.G. Wells message or vision for mankind, is entirely bleak. This is simply because there is nothing positive in the book. Whilst there are individual events that provoke an optimistic feeling in the reader, these are always challenged by a more prominent pessimistic occurrence on the same subject. When the time traveller rescued "weakly-crying" Weena from the shallow, and she presented him with a "big garland of flowers", anyone reading would think the novel has taken a positive turn.

However, when the time traveller committed the "atrocious folly" of lighting a fire in the woods, then leaving Weena unguarded while she lay unconscious, leading to her presumed death; the novel is once again on its bleak and pessimistic trail. The story starts with the Time Traveller entertaining a group of associates. They are all middle class people being entertained in a realistic settings; "the fire burnt brightly,"and there was that luxurious after dinner atmosphere". This " introduction " is crucial, for the whole basis of the novel is around the idea that time travel is possible, this shows it is a science fiction novel, as opposed to a fantasy. The idea of science fiction books was being developed just as H.G. Wells was writing "The time machine", so he was very much I pioneer of the genre. Brian Aldi iss has since defined science fiction as "hubris clobbered by nemesis", and I believe this is just the idea that Wells is following; the pride and arrogance of the human race being clobbered by its own apparent suicide.

In my opinion this is what the author's message or warning is based upon. When the time traveller takes his leap into the future, he arrives in a totally alien environment, "my sensations would be hard to describe". He doesn't know what to think at first, then "as the columns of hail grew thinner", he sees the sphinx. The time traveller's first view of this world is "an unpleasant suggestion of disease". His thoughts are to question; had "cruelty grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race had lost its manliness?" Before he actually saw the Eloi, or Morlocks, and had time to think about what they might be he was "seized with a panic of fear".

This tells us that the Time Traveller, like Wells has a pessimistic view of mans future; this suggesting that Wells uses the Time Traveller significantly as a tool for himself in the novel. His first impressions of the Eloi are that they are "very beautiful and graceful creatures, but indescribably frail - that he tic beauty we used to hear so much". Already he links back to his own time, perceiving the Eloi as the beautiful upper class. H.G. Wells had his own strong personal beliefs, these included Marxism and Darwinism. These two themes can be traced throughout the entire novel, set behind the clear-cut science fiction theme. Darwinism is the theory of evolution, the survival of the fittest. This is an idea that was just getting to its peak in Well's time, being a scientific man himself, he couldn't help but use this in portraying his bleak message to the audience.

Marxism is a political idea, derived by Carl Marx. Well's was a Marxist, which also meant he was a communist. The concept behind Marxism is that there is a social divide in society. There are the upper and middle classes, and the lower class. The lower class is treated infinitely worse that the others, given the worst jobs, they are beaten in the work place, most lower class children would have been working from a very young age to try and support the struggling family. What Well's seems to point to in his writing is the miners of his time.

His theory of Darwinism; when the novel gets underway the time traveller is transported to an almost alien environment, there is little to nothing of what he remembers about his own time. There are "Exquisite creatures", beautiful creatures, who are inhabiting the surface of this world; these seem to be the direct descendants of man, living within themselves in a utopia. They seem to have no purpose, and lead a pointless, yet happy life. Following the theory of Darwinism, these creatures have almost de-evolved after not having to defend themselves, or fend for themselves; they have everything they need, and so any sign of high intelligence has totally vanished; the "intellectual level of 5-year-old-children". Also there are no signs of death among these people "there were no crematorium" or any other signs of graveyards or the sort. However this feeling of Utopia is short lived.

The time traveller stumbles upon the Morlocks. This is when the theory's of Marxism and Darwinism combine, along with the realistic rather than fantastical presentation of the novel. The time traveller discovers the Morlocks; they are shown to us as weird mechanical sorts of beasts; the first inkling of their world is "the throb and hum of machinery". The Morlocks themselves are "Stooping white creatures", as they live in this subterranean world we naturally presume them to be the more primitive and at the same time more evil of the two species. The Eloi are the upper / middle classes. The Morlocks are the lower.

This is Wells's belief in the Marxist theory taken to the limit. "Then I remembered that strange fear of the dark". The lower class people of Wells's time lived in the most awful and barbaric conditions. In particular people were sent down mines, they left early in the morning in the darkness, spent their entire day in the dark, and returned home late, after the sun had set. Now there was a totally new species to represent the lower class, the Morlocks who spend all their time in the dark, in fact they can't be in the light. This is because after spending so much time in the darkness the evolved to become accustomed to it.

"Upon the hillside were some thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat, blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment. These lower class Morlocks as true to Marxist theory seem to have overthrown the Upper class Eloi, who "like the Carlovignan kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. They are show to be futile especially when they don't help Weena "It will give you an idea of the strange deficiency of these creatures when I tell you that none made the slightest attempt to rescue" her. Also the fact that they all huddle away from the Morlocks "these people gather into great houses after dark, and slept in droves". The "lesson of that fear" was obviously that the Morlocks prayed on the weak, defenceless, and in some ways pathetic Eloi, showing the reversal of the class system, and more of Wells's Marxism. With this pessimistic view of mankind looming in the storyline, Wells still wasn't convinced his warning was powerful enough.

When the time traveller rediscovers the machine, he stumbles into an ambush of Morlocks, and instead of travelling back into his own time, he goes forward. He reaches the last "twilight" left of the world. The only life surviving on this world appears to be water based. "A really monstrous crab-like creature" and a black thing with the apparent shape of a jellyfish "tentacles trailed down from it, it was black against the blood-red water". This is very ironic and brings back his Darwinist theory but a distorted parody of it. According to Darwin all life came out the sea, and now in the dying days of the Earth, the descendants of man were crawling back into the sea to accept their fate.

To finally add to the warning the time traveller is nearly left to die in this cold lonely place. "Then I felt I was fainting, but a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote and awful twilight sustained me, I clambered upon the saddle. This is where the presentation is of great import. It is clear now from the statements above that H. G Wells wrote "The time machine" as a warning to mankind. I believe this warning is for the aristocracy of his time to step back and look at how they are treating the lower class. For them to take any such warning seriously, they had to surely believe that somehow it could be possible.

Wells uses a number of tools in his writing to make this possible. For one the book is not written from the time traveller's point of view. It is written from the point of view of the reader, the audience, who are listening to this unbelievable story. The first statement in the " Introduction " is the time traveller "was expounding a recondite matter to us". So Wells makes it clear from early on that this is not a sure thing, he is asking the reader to make a decision, to believe the time traveller or not. He doesn't throw the story at them; he adds a twist of uncertainty even within the novel, this is whether any of it actually happens.

In my opinion this has a great effect that makes the reader feel part of the novel, and therefore makes them more likely to accept the warning. He develops this by adding yet more uncertainty about the truth behind the journey of the time traveller. "There I object"It's against reason". Wells addresses the men of reason of his time, which by my reckoning was a very large number of people. The industrial revolution was in its midst and everything revolved around mechanical reason. Now Wells had to turn away from reason to make his warning, without creating a fantastical novel.

This is why Wells has characters in his own book questioning its very basis. On the other hand someone reading the book may well question this. Subduing to the easier concept of the book not containing any great message or warning, and that it was more of a fantasy that even a science fiction novel. It is my belief though that there is far too much evidence within the novel to oppose this as I have stated throughout the essay.

In my eyes the only answer to what H. G Wells's message is, is that it was a warning to the world. For them to acknowledge their fellow humans that they ran into the ground, and also to regard themselves as lucky, to remind them that the world they live on is a beautiful place, they should enjoy it while they can.