The novel tackles the aspects of classes. When the time traveller travels to the future, he discovers that classes will eventually lead to the division of society. In the novel, the eloi and morlocks roles are overstated to the extent that its characteristics fit their roles and are kept in context to be able to relate it to their current roles. Wells description, of the future civilisation. Which consist of eloi and morlocks. Even though the novel uses a lot of exaggeration, it is strikingly similar to the Victorian civilisation. The novel uses science fiction to show the differences between the classes. Wells uses exaggeration on the roles of the classes by dividing humanity into two different beings and communities. This sums up what he is trying to project. The fact that society will be changing; classes will be the dividing factor of the people. Therefore, Society will be split into two. The morlocks and the eloi. The morlocks, which represent the working class, have evolved into big hideous ape like creatures like a subterranean species of humankind that shy away from the light and work underground. This implies that they have been, degraded during the centuries: that they are socially and physically lower than the eloi. The eloi live above ground and enjoy a seemingly relaxing life in which they don not even work for as they wander among the ruins of an earlier society. At first, it seems to the time-traveller that having eliminated all natural threats, the Eloi have, deteriorated and degenerated into their current state of innocence. Innocence as if it seems a norm to compare them to children. As, they have the characteristics of a child. Strolling lazily, sleeping, and eating, yet so beautiful. Very much, like the Victorian upper class. The eloi in fact their too perfect security of the upper world has led to a slow movement and dwindling in strength, size, and intelligence. This frightful description is used by wells to warn the upper class what they could end up like. He does this to make sure that he does not make the eloi better than the morlock as he makes them out to be foolish and fragile. However, Wells does make sure to outline the inequalities. Through out the novel there are slight hints, which strongly support the fact that the novel illustrates that life in Britain at the end of the Victorian era. Over all I think that H.G Wells is trying to say that this is the way that the classes in Brittan will go if equality is not brought into society.
In the novel Wells portrays the morlocks as ‘ape like creatures’ with ‘strange large greyish red eyes’ almost like human spider. A subterranean species, of humankind that shy, away from the light and maintain strange technologies beneath the surface. He describes them as animals to show their inhuman behaviour and image. Wells does not describe the morlocks in depth, like the eloi. He does this to let the reader’s imagination create an image based on the brief description. However, Wells does make sure to keep the morlocks description intact with their class, roles, work, and environment. In the novel, the morlocks represent the working class. The morlocks have adapted to their surroundings. They live and work underground in ‘stuffy and oppressive’ surroundings. Similar to the factories that were springing up across the Brittan. The y work to keep the upper class in luxury. This reminds the Victorians ‘‘that the splendours of society are built on the backs of the masses’’. The morlocks are not allowed education or free time. Wells uses the opposite of Darwin’s theory, as the creatures are not evolving into more complex organisms, but instead more basic once. The novel constantly comments on ‘‘great shapes like big machines, rose out of the dimness and cast grotesque black shadows’’. This reminds the reader that the factories are still around and the classes have maintained their roles and characteristics of the working class and upper class have become stronger. On the other side, Wells is also trying to encourage the reader to reader to think of the industrialisation of Brittan and the increase of factories, which dominated the cities. The morlocks seem unable to rise from the underground because they have light sensitive eyes. This can be compared to the Victorian working class who use to be discriminated or looked down at by the upper class. Therefore, they would not like visiting, the wealthy areas and remain in their poor estates. They cannot blend with the eloi / Victorian upper class because of their strong characteristics. More importantly, it seems like the morlock are unable to work themselves up into the upper class, as they are not allowed education very similar to the Victorian poor working class, which were also unable to get education.
‘‘The Time Machine’’ relates to real life and the novel to some extent is quite realistic. It is an interesting idea that the morlocks are gradually threatening the eloi by eating them. This can be interpreted as an up rise, as the morlocks can no longer keep their frustration. This is common even till today as people from poor areas usually unemployed, protest, or riot for civil rights or work. However, this also frightens the Victorian upper class, as they would not want something of that sort to happen to them. However, it also warns them of what they will be facing. Creatures, which would not mind eating you. This shows the barbaric ness of the morlocks.
The Time Machine
In this story, Wells moves away from speculation on the present and takes a giant leap into the future, as his Victorian time-traveller constructs a device to travel in the fourth dimension. Arriving in the far distant future, the time-traveller is confronted with the realisation that humankind has evolved into two distinct species. The physically beautiful, but mentally childlike Eloi enjoy a seemingly idyllic life in which they want for nothing as they wander among the ruins of an earlier society. At first, it seems to the time-traveller that having eliminated all natural threats, the Eloi has degenerated into their current state of innocence. He soon learns, however, that the Eloi are not the sole inhabitants of their world as he stumbles upon the tunnels of the Morlocks, a subterranean species of humankind that shy away from the light and maintain strange technologies beneath the surface. Upon closer study, the darker side of the Morlocks is revealed in their relationship to the Eloi, the latter being similar to passive cattle in more than one sense. As well as commenting on the duality of human nature, The Time Machine provides a timely reminder of the fact that the splendours of society are built on the backs of the masses and can endure only so long as they remain in their allotted places. The elite stand tall until the masses decide to cast off their chains and rebel against the established order.
H.G. Wells was very much a free thinker, although born into 'Victorian society' he rebelled against many of the accepted norms and values of that society. One of the good things about being a writer is that you can express your feelings through your work – you do not necessarily have to break windows or go on demonstrations as us lesser folk have to!
In this short story, Wells is looking at the position of the outsider, the one who can see more clearly than others, the intellectual, and the freethinker if you like. You might assume at first that someone who has gifts that everyone else lacks would become a leader, and that is what our hero thinks in this story. This is not the case however; he finds that he is not only pitied because he does not conform to the norm, in the end he is going to be forced to conform, if he wishes to remain a part of that society.
You can see clearly here how Wells feels about Victorian England; leaders and intellectuals are not recognised and are forced brutally to conform if they wish to be a part of society. Go back to your story again and see if you can find some quotations to back these ideas up.
I am not sure that many Victorian people would have understood your question. H. G. Wells wrote many books, which contained ideas that we would now associate with science fiction, but that is not to say that it was a popular idea. In any case, H. G. Wells was essentially an Edwardian Writer (1901-1910).
On a more positive note, the nineteenth century was the period when modern science developed for the first time. Chemistry and Physics developed as separate disciplines and Darwin made his discoveries in evolution. It is not surprising therefore, that the Victorians became interested in speculating about what man might be capable of in ways that earlier people in centuries had not. In fact, few people had really given free range to their thoughts in technological terms since Leonardo ad Vinci at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
The Victorians also possessed a degree of self-confidence in man’s abilities, which encouraged them to speculate. It is no accident that the first the first detective stories were also written in the second half of the nineteenth century and that Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, also wrote ‘the Lost World’.
On a more positive note, the nineteenth century was the period when modern science developed for the first time. Chemistry and Physics developed as separate disciplines and Darwin made his discoveries in evolution. It is not surprising therefore; that the Victorians became interested in speculating about what man might be capable of, this introduced science fiction. Science fiction was taking of very well as authors such as Allen Poe and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) came out. Was
