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H.G. Wells

 

            In giving the rising genre of science fiction a new credibility, H. Wells was able to bring out his views that man will persevere, as well as eternally seek to be the "conqueror" of all, and his depiction of the current society of man. Wells also was able to provide readers with what most deemed an accurate prediction of the future social order of man.
             The Time Machine, written in 1895, provides a parody of English class division. The story is told by Hillyer who tells his friends of his visit to the year 802701 just a week after their discussion of time travel theories. Hillyer tells of the two types of people he found during his travel: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi, small and weak, live above ground, whereas the Morlocks are brutish creatures who live below ground and also eat the Eloi. Wells, being a strong advocate of Darwinism, promotes the idea of "survival of the fittest" in showing the struggle between the seemingly defenseless Eloi and the ruthless Morlocks. In the same sense in the English society, there were and perhaps still are basically two classes of people: the insignificant and weak humans, and the strong, dominant humans. The more dominant humans, in a sense, "eat" the weaker humans. In the end, only the strong survive. Although "survival of the fittest" is not solely a Darwinist view, it is the basis for much of their beliefs. Survival of the fittest proves to be true in seemingly all areas of life.
             Wells was able to carefully study technical details in order to provide the story with a slightly realistic atmosphere. The time machine's basic "principles" contained resources seeing time as the fourth dimension. Albert Einstein published his theory of the four dimensional continuum of space-time just years later.
             Man's nature tends to be characterized with an almost need for power. People crave power and the more they receive it, the more their entire being is consumed by it.


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