H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” as Critique of Capitalism

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Science fiction writing can be used to critique the society that the author lives within. This is what H.G. Wells did in the writing of The Time Machine. Taking ideas that were new and popular in his time, such as Socialism and Darwinism, he created a dystopian future that showed a horrific outcome that capitalism could possibly create. The lazy Eloi and the brutish Morlocks are obviously representative of upper class and lower class society.

The basics of Marxism is the story of class struggle: “Their analysis of class struggle always posited a continuing basic conflict between the workers and their parties with the dominant class” (Curtis 278). Through examining the Morlocks’ and Eloi’s interaction with each other, we can see how Wells thought the class struggle would eventually play out in the distant future.

Even though the Time Traveler initially had the mistaken hypothesis about the Eloi, we can consider the hypothesis and extrapolate what we are meant to consider about the future of the human race if class struggle was eliminated. The Eloi were originally considered by the Time Traveler to be the result of a communist society conquering the natural world and resulting in the seemingly peaceful existence they seemed to have. The Time Traveler is here apparently stating that he thinks that it would be through a communist society that people would eventually be able to live in a world free of struggle. In describing this communist paradise, the Time Traveler states that it is a society “where violence comes but rarely and off-spring are secure” (Wells 35).

With all people working together, the Time Traveler is stating that a lack of competition for resources would yield an ideal society. This scenario can also be viewed through the scope of Darwinism, in which the Eloi are the result of being the best fit to survive because they are able to live without struggle in the natural world. This would be evolution through lack of conflict, and the Eloi were the best adapted because their way of life

This, of course, is not an accurate description of the world that the Eloi inhabit. It is through the introduction of the Morlocks that we come to find out that the communist paradise is anything but that: “The mere existence of the subterranean Morlocks refutes the notion of a gradually evolving, classless society; the Morlocks, after all represent the ultimate form of the exploited and de-humanized working class” (Malmgren 39).

In the reality of the world that the book inhabits, the Eloi, who live above ground, represent the upper class, and the Morlocks, who live below ground, represent the lower class. The Eloi are the result of an upper class who “had been content to live in ease and delight upon the labours of his fellow-man” (Wells 75). The Eloi, because they survived off of the work of the Morlocks, became stupid, lazy, and are unable to take care of themselves. They are completely dependent upon the Morlocks who run the machinery in the subterranean world. As a result, the Morlocks eventually turn the tables of the class system.

Capitalism and divided classes were the negative force here. The Eloi become so pampered that they become weak and stupid. The Morlocks, who are forced to struggle through their labors, remain strong. The Morlocks eventually become conscious of this class struggle, and they eventually find that they can reverse the class system in order to take advantage of the Eloi. While they used to work the underground machinery for the Eloi, they now work it for themselves so that they can keep a supply of Eloi for themselves to eat. This is a quite literal interpretation of the lower class rising up in opposition to the upper class and literally consuming their oppressors.

It is quite clear the message that Wells intended for his audience. The widening of the social classes in his day were made all the more severe by the industrial revolution, and the upper class was surviving on the inhumane conditions that they were forcing the lower class to exist in. If people are forced to live in inhumane conditions, they will eventually lose their humanity. The Morlocks are pale, ape-like creatures who feed off of the flesh of the Eloi.

Though at this point the Time Traveler states that the Eloi and Morlocks are separate species, it is obvious that cannibalism is the implied message. The social classes forced upon people was to be viewed as a sort of cannibalism, though by the time the Time Traveler finds these species the upper class/lower class power dichotomy has reversed. Not only the cannibalistic Morlocks, but the Eloi lose their humanity as well.

The Eloi are basically cattle, and they are unable to fend for themselves. By forcing the Morlocks to live in inhumane conditions, they lost their humanity as well. All of the qualities that the Time Traveler viewed as positive in humans had been bred out of the Eloi. This is Darwinian as well: “The novel demonstrates that evolution is a value-neutral force which can easily convert progress into something very like its opposite, and that scientific advancement can be self-defeating” (Malmgren 39). Evolution does not favor any certain ideology; natural selection is simply a mechanism through which the best adapted survive.

This novella was obviously Wells‘ plea to his country to consider the conditions that were in existence because of capitalism. Capitalism, similarly to natural selection, was not a conscious effect but a neutral force. People who were born into better situations, such as being born into an upper-class family, had more of a chance to succeed by exploiting those born into lower class families. While capitalism is generally viewed as the ultimate equalizer in society, it is that Wells viewed it in completely the opposite terms. If humanity wants to avoid a nightmarish future similar to what he depicts in The Time Machine, people will have to end the practice of taking advantage of others and oppressing people through a class system.

Works Cited

Curtis, Michael, Marxism: The Inner Dialogues. Piscataway, NJ, Transaction Publishers, 1997.

Malmgren, Carl, D., Worlds Apart: Narratology of Science Fiction. Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1991.

Wells, Herbert George, The Time Machine. New York, Random House, 1895.

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H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” as Critique of Capitalism

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