Time Traveller

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‘The Time Traveller is a Victorian Everyman.  He embodies the values of Victorian society in every word and deed.’

The question that I will be exploring is ‘To what extent is the Time Traveller a Victorian Everyman.’

   A Victorian Everyman is meant to be a smart, middle-class man who will think about things such as politics and global considerations such as colonialism. However, if he did think in this way he would follow and express the values of a Victorian Everyman and Victoria society.  He could contradict the system and think the pros and cons of it, but he would not think about any negative aspects as that would not be the way in which a Victorian Everyman would think.  The question perceives that the Victorian Everyman would follow the society’s expectations to the letter.

   The question also asks and states that he embodies the values of Victorian society in everything.  I feel that he does not embody all values in everything he does, for instance, he is not a religious man and prefers his science.  In addition at the beginning of the novel the Time Traveller does have the traits of a Victorian Everyman in which he agrees with the social hierarchy however, as the novel progresses he changes his views as a result of his experiences.  A Victorian Everyman would agree with the social system and would defend it if it was opposed.  If the Time Traveller does embody the Victorian society, he would support all aspects of the ethos.

 

  What are the values that are so valuable that they are part of the Victorian Society? And are they part of the Victorian Everyman that the Time Traveller is meant to be?

 

  There is much evidence to contradict that he is a Victorian Everyman; I could say that his scientific views are stronger that his religious views by the very fact that he is building a Time Machine.  To take the question from all angles, you have to look at everything he does or has done and how he feels for example, political and religious views, his emotions, attitude and past.

  It is important to also explore the context of the time in which the Time Traveller and the author lived.  The religion at the time and the scientific knowledge support both sides of the argument, for example a Victorian Everyman would have been bonded to religion but would have promoted science on the basis of furthering knowledge.  However, the Time Traveller did not believe in religion in the traditional sense – science was his religion.  This is also shown by the fact that there was no-one of religious profession at the meeting described at the beginning of the novel, just men of science including the Medical Man and a man of non-religious views as an editor.

   H.G.Wells reflected his own time, the ‘Golden Age,’ in the novel; that must have influenced H.G.Wells and the Time Traveller in their attitudes because in the Golden Age, science was progressing as far as it could go and indeed further as illustrated by the fact that the Time Traveller was building a Time Machine.  The Victorian Everyman would have supported the progression of Science.  Also, because of the Golden Age, the workers at the time were under increasing pressure, for little pay, to manufacture the goods that were in demand. This influenced the disapproving attitude that H.G.Wells and the Time Traveller showed in communism.

   Class distinction is also shown in the Golden Age, for example the distinctions between the Morlocks and the Eloi are made to emphasis what would happen to Victorian Society of it carried on the way it is going - to the point that the race would split.  This shows that the Time Traveller is not a Victorian Everyman as he would have disapproved of the social split; a Victorian Everyman would have approved of the division and would not have questioned it.

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   Women in this age were not seen to be important as shown at the start of the novel, for example, there were no women included in the meeting making you perceive that the Time Traveller is a Victorian Everyman because of this group. However, that is contradicted by the author making Weena, a small female, one of the main characters in the novel.  The Time Traveller wants to protect Weena because she is small and fragile for example, he does not want her to enter the caves with him and later in the novel he picks Weena up, ...

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