The Time Traveller is used as a fictional indirect advocate of Wells’ idea that capitalism was one of the great tribulations of the modern society. He is a relatively affluent and model upper-middle class Victorian character, living near Richmond; probably at the transition from the end of the 19th-century to the beginning of the 20th.
The book commences with the Time Traveller with his guests, who are merely labelled by their occupation or otherwise, ‘expounding a recondite matter to (them)’. His arrogance is set to reflect that of the aristocracy- he ‘(has) to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted.’ Indeed the idea of his to travel through the ‘Fourth Dimension’ that is time, is put down as ‘some sleight-of-hand trick or other.’
The evolution theory is strongly questioned in ‘The Time Machine’; Wells chose to integrate a number of scientific--both natural and social--ideas in his argument against capitalism. The majority of people at the end of the 19th-century held the assumption that mankind would continue to progress, and that improvements in society and culture were a given thing.
In ‘Origin of the Species’, Charles Darwin argued that different environments encouraged the reproduction of those species whose varying traits best suited them to survive; their offspring, in turn, would be better adapted for the new environment, as would their offspring and so on. Social Darwinism, developed by British philosopher Herbert Spencer, frequently misapplied this concept of ‘natural selection’ to justify 19th-century social stratification between the rich and poor. The motto ‘survival of the fittest’ doesn’t necessarily mean the surviving members of an environment are the ‘best,’ but simply the best fit for their specific environment. Therefore, evolution does not lead to the ‘perfectibility’ of any species, as is generally perceived, but to the increasing adaptability and complexity of a species. Social Darwinism ignored this idea and contended that the social environment was much like the ruthless natural environment, and that those who succeeded were biologically destined to do so and to continue in their march to human perfection. On the contrary, those who failed were naturally inferior specimens of humanity.
Wells spots holes in this argument and indicates the effects on human evolution if capitalism continues unimpeded: mankind will effectively split into two distinct species, the ruling class that are the Eloi - in them; he mocks Victorian dissolution - and the working class that are the Morlocks, in whom he provides a potentially Marxist critique of capitalism.
Irony is crucial to the understanding of ‘The Time Machine’; the great irony is the realisation of the future when the Time Traveller journeys to the year 802,701 AD. The Victorian audience enjoyed the spirit of adventure but would have found this nightmarish dystopia disturbing in some respect. Although at landing it appears to be a utopia with a Garden of Eden feel the White Sphinx ‘imparted an unpleasant suggestion of diseases.’ The Time Traveller ponders the possibility that man ‘had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful.’
Ironically, however, he notices ‘slight creature(s) – perhaps four feet high’, which wear ‘purple tunic(s), girdled at the waist with a leather belt’ and ‘Sandals or buskins’; an image of Roman such attire. These ‘Eloi’ were also ‘indescribably frail’ in the eyes to the Time Traveller. These beautiful creatures seem, at first, to be the perfect inhabitants of an advanced age but it is soon discovered that the advancements of civilisation have enfeebled them; without any pressing need for survival, they have become weak, indolent, and especially stupid with their language being ‘simple (and) almost exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs.'
Wells uses more ironies in the novel to get this point across: the Time Traveller turns into a near-primal savage in his conflict with the Morlocks, for instance, and he finds little use from the more advanced displays in the ‘Palace of Green Porcelain’, such as the ruined literature: ‘the enormous waste of labour to which (the) sombre wilderness of rotting paper testified; opting instead for a simple lever as a weapon. Though the Time Traveller is in the world of 802,701 AD, behaviour and tools of prehistoric man--such as fire, his main ally against the Morlocks--are more effective; he must devolve to survive in the evolved world.
The concept of entropy states that systems tend toward disorder and loss of energy over time. Wells is clearly a believer in entropy, as evidenced by two parts of "The Time Machine." The futuristic Eloi personify entropy; they are lazy, dull creatures whose energy is easily sapped (note how Weena can never keep up with the Time Traveller) and who live in chaotic fear of the Morlocks. But Wells explores natural entropy in penultimate Chapter, when the Time Traveller journeys into a future that slowly loses its energy with ‘(it) (being) hard to convey the stillness of (the) (world).’
Wells’ early exposure to poverty marked him for the rest of his days; he had become infuriated with the fact that ‘his mother had tried to destroy all his hopes and to condemn him to something less than a lackey…’ Indeed he seemed to be quite an irate person at times: ‘His bottled-up feelings on this score…had finally burst out into the open in his descriptions of the loathly caverns inhabited by the light-fearing Morlocks in “The Time Machine”.’ He allows the Time Traveller to theorize that the working class has been pushed as ‘there is a tendency to utilize underground space for less ornamental purposes of civilization’; as is the case with the Victorian era - ‘the Metropolitan Railway in London, for instance,’ and effectively, the proletariat had been pushed down for so long that it had evolved into a distinct nocturnal species, with the upper class remaining above ground. They became stocked with facilities and so became weak, indolent and dependant creatures.
However at a point the Morlocks had exhausted their food supply had hence hunted down the Eloi (Hebrew for sheep), which it bred like ‘cattle’. While the Time Traveller considers this turning of the tables merely an act of survival, to Wells it may have meant more. Schooled in Marxism, he may have seen in the origins of the Morlocks' revolution what is known in Communism as ‘class consciousness’; the working class sees itself as oppressed--it becomes conscious of its class--and bonds together to overthrow the ruling class. And this is actually what happened in Russia during the Great War with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917: ‘social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer was the key to the whole position.’
The quote at the start of this essay is quite significant: ‘The Time Machine glitters with the same surface irony as “The Stolen Bacillus”. But below the surface are depths of gloom and cruel despair.’
The book had numerous science elements to it but these were ‘(Wells’) fireworks (which) hid the murky background from (his contemporaries’) eyes.’ And hence the theme of appearance and reality is relatively significant. The
The tale of 802,701 is political observation of late Victorian England. This narrative serves as a symbol aiding a discussion of socialism and its principles of equality. Wells suggests to his Victorian audience that current society change its ways, lest it end up like the Eloi, petrified of a revolutionary race of Morlocks.
