‘Everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers…….The idea of preventative medicine had
been attained. Diseases had been stamped out.’
In the Victorian age there was extreme poverty and those who were unfortunate enough to belong to the lower class had little access to things that are now taken for granted such as medical care. The Welfare State as we know it today did not exist - if you went into debt, you were simply forced into the workhouse or debtor’s prison until it had been paid off. Due to lack of education, the Victorian working class had no way of improving their situation. Throughout the beginning and middle of the novel, there is a sense of underlying tension. Although ‘The Time Traveller’ believes the Eloi’s to be in control he often questions aspects of their relationship with the Morlocks. For example, he cannot understand why, if the Eloi’s are masters, they are unable to return his ‘Time Machine’ to him. However, even with these doubts, he still believes the Morlocks to be the lower class, and likens them to labourers in the Victorian times
‘Even now, does not an East-end worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off
from the natural surface of the earth?’
H.G Wells emphasises in the Eloi’s the things that Morlocks lack, humanity, kindness, gentleness and beauty, to exaggerate the extent of the Morlock’s evil. He introduces the Morlock’s as outsiders, he gives the impression they are trespassing in the Eloi’s world, that they are taking that which does not belong to them. H.G. Wells intentionally creates the impression that the Morlocks are the lower classes. It seems everything about them is a stark contrast to the Elois, the subterranean world in which they live is devoid of beauty and even of light, the source of all life.
‘You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked – those pale, chinless faces and
great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!’
It is the Morlocks that befoul the previously flawless world of the Eloi’s, their greatest crime is the way in which they destroy the image of total peace and happiness. Before the introduction of the Morlocks the world of the Eloi’s appears to be free of danger and fear, it is the Morlock’s that destroy this image of perfection. H.G Wells introduces them in this way to make the reader prejudiced against the Morlocks, or the lower classes. ‘The Time Traveller’ finds that he ‘instantly loathed’ them and calls them ‘this new vermin’, again causing the reader to be influenced by his reactions to them.
Naturally, first impressions lead him to believe that because the Eloi’s live in a ‘perfect world’, they must be the masters. It seems impossible to him that the Morlocks could actually be in control, because he is accustomed to the underprivileged being the submissive class. H.G Wells uses an upper class, educated man to discover this new world so that the reader experiences it from the perspective of the upper class. Being upper class, ‘The Time Traveller’ is repulsed by the Morlock’s or working class, he automatically criminalises the Morlocks simply due to their apparently ‘lower’ social status. ‘The Time Traveller’ is also disappointed in the Eloi’s as he travelled to the future hoping to find a new kind of intelligence-instead he finds the crumbling remains of a past aristocracy, who have no books, do no research, and display little interest in the world around them. Although the ‘Time Traveller’ is undoubtedly a highly intelligent man, shown by his very invention of the time machine, his prejudices and ideas of class system cause him to make false, sweeping accusations about a community and world on which he is ignorant.
‘….exclusive tendency of the richer people due, no doubt, to the increasing refinement of their education
and the widening gulf between them and the rude violence of the poor.’
H.G. Wells does not use ‘The Time Machine’ to represent the ill-treatment of the lower classes, or warn the upper classes to treat them with more respect, but conveys from an affluent man’s perspective, that the working class need to remain subdued and submissive, that the upper class should not become arrogant or complacent enough to allow the poor to gain any power.
In conclusion, therefore, H.G. Wells uses ‘The Time Machine’ to analyse Victorian society by juxtaposition. He compares the futuristic ‘Utopia’ to the imperfect Victorian society, the ‘evil’ Morlocks to the Victorian working class and the relationship between the classes, both in the Victorian times and in the future world.
