A Social Darwinist Analysis Of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine

Herbert George Wells was an English author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. H. G. Wells, English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian, regarded as"The Father of Science Fiction"1, whose science fiction stories have been filmed many times.His writing career spanned an incredible fifty-five years, and took the form of essays, novels, science fiction, short stories, textbooks, speculative prophecy, utopias, journalism, letters and autobiography. Yet Wells longed to be known not only as an author of novels such as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds but also as a serious social and political thinker and as an educator. His influence is felt in the genre of science fiction, in the promotion of human rights and in his ideas on world governance.Wells made his debut with The Time Machine, a parody of English class division. Published in book form in 1895, The Time Machine is regarded as the best-known of Wells'"scientific romances"and one of the most influential stories about time travel ever written. Upon its publication in book form in 1895, The Time Machine was hailed as a masterpiece. Although the story was not the first to explore the concept of time travel, it is significant for its pseudoscientific explanation of how time travel could possibly occur.H.G. Wells was born only seven years after the most important scientific publication of the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin, a famous philosopher, published his The Origin of Species. As people studied the theories of Charles Darwin, many scholars led to the concept of Social Darwinism. The term"Social Darwinism"is to an entirely different set of relations, where the biological terms are not analogies, but are entirely appropriate. It is in the field of social biology, and to the investigation of the manner in which social institutions and doctrines influence the competition, elimination, survival of individuals and groups of individuals. These phenomena are measurable in exact terms, since they merely involve organic relations of a high order of complexity.Social Darwinism is the general term which applies to several different ways in which people (not biologists) tried to apply a distorted and narrow interpretation of the concept of natural selection to human cultural systems. None of these political ideologies is actually any part of evolutionary theory.Darwinian ideas and their relationship to human life and conduct were major elements in the intellectual climate of Wells'time --- the Victorian age. Nor has the impact of evolutionary theory on Wells been overlooked. Wells was both impressed and influenced by Darwin's ideas, and The Time Machine is very much one of its fictional offspring. Wells'fictions confirm science's power and contribution, and also unveil social conflicts. Social Darwinism thoughts in Wells'fiction reflect his profound philosophy, speculation and insights. In the era of fast technological advancements today, it's of vital importance to study his thought in his novels, and to explore his philosophical views about utopia, industrial civilization and the future destiny of humanity.This thesis will focus on the perspectives from the Social Darwinism to analyze H. G. Wells'The Time Machine.The first part introduces H. G. Wells'career and his writings, the main criticism of his works, especially it introduces the theoretical background for the study. The second one,through analyzing the mechanism and symbols of the evolution in the novel, anatomizes the doctrine of progress in Wells'viewpoint. The third part puts more emphasis on another important criterion of Social Darwinism that is"the survival of fittest"and"the struggle for existence", and illustrates the struggle and survival phenomena in Wells'future world. The fourth one analyzes Wells'pursuit of the cooperation and coexistence in the organism by showing Wells'contemplation on human beings.