Wells Social Imagination
All novels are influenced by the social and cultural background of their authors, and clearly 'The Time Machine' is no exception. In view of this, there is a great deal which can be concluded from the respective ways in which the tale is presented. Wells prefaced his romance by a sketch in the old PALL-MALL GAZETTE, entitled "The Man of the Year Million", a priori study that made one thankful for one's prematurity. After that piece of logic, however, he tried another essay in evolution, published in 1895 in book form under the title of 'The Time Machine' -- the first of his romances.
Wells was writing in 1894-95, and his fantasy reflects the concerns of his day. As a socialist ...
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future, the world of 802, 701 AD.
The machine itself is the vaguest of mechanical assumptions, a thing of ivory, quartz, nickel and brass that quite illogically carries its rider into an existing past or future. We accept the machine as a literary device to give an air of probability to the essential thing, the experience; and forget the means in the effect. The criterion of the prophecy in this case is influenced by the theory of "natural selection." Mr. Wells' vision of the "Sunset of Mankind" was of men so nearly adapted to their environment that the need to struggle, with the corollary of the extermination of the unfit, had practically ceased. Humanity had become differentiated into two races, both recessive. The Eloi, the descendants of the leisured classes, have become child-like androgynous creatures, weak and unable to fend for them selves. Their lives of leisure are enjoyed only at the cost of premature death, at the hands of the cannibalistic Morlocks. The Morlocks, the ...
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Wells Social Imagination. (2005, July 15). Retrieved March 26, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Wells-Social-Imagination/30087
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"Wells Social Imagination." Essayworld.com. July 15, 2005. Accessed March 26, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Wells-Social-Imagination/30087.
"Wells Social Imagination." Essayworld.com. July 15, 2005. Accessed March 26, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Wells-Social-Imagination/30087.
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