Who Is H. G. Wells's The Time Machine?

In H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, the reader sees a far distant future. In this future world, humanity no longer exists in its current state. Instead, something has led to two new, vaguely human species, the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Time Traveler develops a series of theories on how this came to be. Each of these theories aligns itself closely with a different aspect of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species. While it was considered a social commentary on different socioeconomic systems, it can be just as easily viewed as a presentation on Darwin’s groundbreaking work. This book imagines Darwinism carried out thousands of years into the future, and the possible effects it could have on mankind. The Time Traveler first finds himself in a …show more content…
The Morlocks live almost entirely underground. He recognizes that they, as well, are likely descendants from humanity. He sees the Morlocks as slaves to the Eloi. They come up and clothe them, and feed them, and take care of them the way a shepherd would tend to his flock. He thus continues to see the Eloi as descendants of humanity that had life too easy. He now sees the Morlocks as the other extreme. These are the manual laborers of modern Britain. This is all a great example of Darwin’s idea of speciation. Speciation is the idea that as different groups evolve and change, through random chance, environment, and natural selection, they can eventually become very different from one another. In this case, as one group of humans become weaker and weaker, presumably the aristocracy, the working class became more and more brute like. Eventually, they became two new species that shared humans as a common …show more content…
He sees that now, though, the Morlocks terrify and hunt the Eloi. They have formed a unique symbiotic relationship. The analogy of the shepherd and his flock from earlier are especially prescient here. In fact, the Morlocks are treating and raising the Eloi like livestock. This shows Darwin’s idea of natural selection, at an extreme. Darwin stated that organisms that have the most favorable traits survive, prosper, and maintain those traits. In this case, one can assume that the Morlocks that were the most brutish repopulated the best. Similarly, the Eloi that were the most frail and delicate, as these are often traits of dignity within the aristocracy, populated the best as well. Over time, this led to extremely brute like Morlocks, and extremely fragile, indeed hunted,

Show More

Related Documents: Who Is H. G. Wells's The Time Machine?

The Science Fiction Museum And Hall Of Fame