Dystopia
Thinking conceptually
Activity 4: Herbert George Wells, The Time Machine, 1895
If the fantastical novels of H.G.Wells are the grandfathers of science fiction, then The Time
Machine, first published in 1895, is the grandfather of dystopian fiction. Wells, like Wyndham,
disliked the term “science fiction” and preferred to classify these works (The Time Machine, The
Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon, The War of the Worlds) as “scientific romances”. A
romance in this sense is a work in which the emotions, responses, eloquence and situations of
ordinary life are heightened in the romance’s characters, plots and themes. Romance is thus
heavily influenced by the nineteenth century popular theatrical form of melodrama: a highly stylised
and hyperbolical form of drama noted for its preposterous plots, pure and virtuous heroines, wicked
villains and brave heroes. Melodrama has had an influence on science fiction, and hence some
Dystopia, ever since.
Wells, like George Orwell, was a socialist who deplored the class system of his time. He was
perturbed by the huge division in wealth and power between the aristocracy and the privileged
upper classes, and the powerless and poor working classes, whose toil nevertheless sustained the
aristocracy. In The Time Machine, Wells creates an allegory in which the aristocracy and the
working classes have evolved into two separate species. As the working class is, in the world view
of some nineteenth century aristocrats, brutish and crude, they evolve into the monstrous
Morlocks; correspondingly, the chinless wonders of the aristocracy become the effete Eloi. Rather
than rebelling against the Eloi in a revolution, the Morlocks manifest their opposition by eating
them.
Yet again, as in Doctor Who and The Chrysalids, mutation – and degeneration – is a theme of The
Time Machine. The Daleks and the Thals also owe much, respectively, to the Morlocks and the
Eloi. In Wells’ novel, however, mutation is a result of evolution rather than technological
catastrophe. Wells thus draws upon the nineteenth century’s obsession with the theory of evolution
as proposed by Charles Darwin, whose Origin of Species was first published in 1859. The narrator
refers to Darwin by name in chapter five, just a paragraph after the extract from The Time Machine
below, in the novel itself.
In this extract, the unnamed narrator the Time Traveller (ludicrously identified as Wells himself in
the 1960 film) encounters Weena, an Eloi female, and the monstrous Morlocks, in the far future.
Read and annotate the extract carefully, then answer the questions which follow. Quote from the
passage to support your ideas.
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Activity 4: Questions
1.
Find five quotations which seem to you to typify Wells’ descriptions of Weena. Analyse the
style of each of these quotations.What do these descriptions suggest about the narrator’s –
and Wells’s– attitude to her?
2.
Do you think there is any distinction between the narrator’s attitude and Wells’ attitude, given
the passage and what you know about the novel? Give reasons for your answers.
3.
Is the characterisation of Weena sexist?
4.
If the Eloi represent the aristocracy, how does Wells use irony in the passage to satirise the
features of the aristocracy as he sees them?
5.
There is a generic overlap between Dystopia, myth and fantasy. What are the mythical,
fantasy or even fairy tale elements of this extract? What response do these elements intend
to create in the reader? How effective are they, do you think, in creating that response?
6.
Read again from “It was from her, too, that I learned…I doubted my eyes.” How does Wells
create atmosphere, mood and suspense in this extract from the passage? How effectively
does he create all three, do you think?
7.
What is the function of the (as yet unidentified) Morlocks in the passage (“greyish animal”;
“white, ape-like creature”)?
8.
Discuss Wells’s characterisation of the Time Traveller in the passage. What techniques does
Wells use to tell us about him? Is he an attractive character to the reader? Give reasons for
your answer.
9.
To what extent do you think this extract from the novel is slanted towards: social satire;
adventure narrative; myth? Does it, perhaps, have elements of all three and how successful
is Wells in communicating all three elements?
[extract from The Time Machine pub. Everyman, ISBN 0460877356 pp. 38-40, from “That day, too,
I made a friend … I doubted my eyes.”]
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