The Time Machine
Date
1895
Authors
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Publisher
Henry Holt
Abstract
H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) is a novel which focuses on a recount of the journey of a Victorian man, aptly named Time Traveler, who, by building a Time Machine, is able to travel eight-hundred thousand years into the future. The world the Time Traveller finds after eight-thousand centuries is divided between two separate human species: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are described as smaller than humans, beautiful, but with sub-human intelligence. Apart from feeding, playing, and mating, the Eloi do not do anything else, being often described as decadent and useless. The Morlocks described as subterranean ape-like beings, appear to retain some of their human curiosity, ambition, and aggression. The Morlocks and the Eloi maintain a symbiotic relationship: the Eloi are fully dependent on the Morlocks for food and clothes, and the Morlocks use the Eloi as a food source. Upon learning this, the Time Traveller speculates that this relationship unfolded from the division between classes present in his own era – the Eloi descend from the upper-class who lived extravagantly at the expense of the working-class, here represented by their descendants the Morlocks. However, as time progressed, the roles were reversed, the rich grew apathetic and useless to the point that they were no longer able to exert power over the poor. The two races thus symbolise Wells’ perspective on the results of unrestrained capitalism: a lethargic upper-class that will eventually be devoured by a proletariat.