The Deconstruction of Self

Here’s another paper I wrote on The Time Machine by HG Wells. Its kind of my first attempt to write a paper using kritikal theory (no, that’s not misspelled) from debate. I think it turned out pretty well. And props to Lauren, another debater in the class, for helping me figure out how to interpret all the competing literature I was reading.

The Pursuit of Necessity: H. G. Wells’s Time Machine and the Deconstruction of Self

            In The Time Machine, The Time Traveller sees a future in which humanity has devolved into two separate species, the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi, elegant and beautiful, live above world and spend their days in leisure and seeming comfort. The Morlocks, hideous and fearsome, dwell in subterranean tunnels, taking care of and feeding on the Eloi. Through The Time Machine, Wells examines modern sociopolitical construction by presenting a future in which the anti-utopia deconstructs individuality, critiquing modernity’s capitalist philosophy and denial of individuality.

In order to understand the argument of The Time Machine, we must first understand Wells’ definition of individualism. Wells considered the distinctiveness of a person from society to be the individuality of that person, “To Wells ‘individualities’ were the unique characteristics of a person that distinguished him or her from the average of the species and were thus the characters upon which selection might operate” (Hale 262-263). To provide further clarity, “modernity” must be defined as well. According to the Oxford English Dictionary modernity is, “[A]…social perspective characterized by departure from or repudiation of traditional ideas…and cultural values in favour of contemporary…beliefs (chiefly those of scientific rationalism and liberalism).” According to Wells, modernity eliminates the construction of the self, instead creating a social construct under which the individual is subject to the hegemony of the state.

Wells first argues that capitalism destroys individuality, both in the present and in the year 802,701. In a dispute with fellow author Henry James, “James urged Wells to leave off his social preaching and explore instead the subtleties of personality. Wells replied that close scrutiny of character is only possible when the social frame remains constant. In his own time, Wells argued, the acceleration of social change had made the frame itself part of the picture” (Sanders 15). Thus, according to Wells, modernity and the rapid evolution of society has precluded any true exploration of character and thus of individuality. In the opening lines of The Time Machine, destroys the sense of characterization, “The Time Traveller, (for so it will be convenient to speak of him)…” (Wells 3). Furthermore, when The Time Traveller fails to arrive at the dinner, the narrator asks, “‘Where’s——-?’ said I, naming our host” (Wells 14). Furthermore all the characters present for The Time Traveller’s narrative are known by their profession. The group present for the Time Traveller’s story is the narrator, the Psychologist, Blank, the Editor, “a certain journalist, and…a quiet, shy man with a beard…” (Wells 14). No man is given an identity other than his function in society. Speaking solely in terms of efficiency, it would be much easier to give proper names. Therefore, it is not convenient for the narrative to deny characters identities, but it convenient for the societal construct within which Wells writes. Modernity can identify a person only through his role in society; identity is merely one’s utilitarian function. Through this capitalistic destruction of individualism, Wells argues, freedom is crushed as well,

Wells acknowledged that humanity was by nature individualistic…he argued that because humans lived in societies, liberty, in any meaningful sense of the word, was not guaranteed by allowing individualistic passions free reign. He concluded that “for all men, since man is a social creature, the play of will must fall short of absolute freedom.” (Hale 262)

In a capitalistic society, where men may choose that which their passions desire, freedom can never be realized. In a capitalist society, according to The Time Traveller’s conclusions, the Eloi have become an “upper class” which is good only as food for the Morlocks. This is the logical end of modern industrialism (Stover 130). Wells believed that,

For the ‘modernized state’ to come into existence, Wells asserted, would require

‘the will and the ideas of public-minded, masterful people’, formed into ‘a militant  organisation’ which would ‘release the human community from the entanglements of the past’. The alternative was for ‘civilization’ to be left to stagger down past redemption

to chaotic violence and  decadence’ (Bloom 173).

Therefore, modernity is fundamentally flawed and will always lead to dehumanization and the destruction of civilization. The future The Time Traveller saw, while avoidable, is the course upon which mankind has embarked.

When The Time Traveller enters into the future, he beholds a society which seems to have achieved utopia. He finds, however, that the “ideal world” he has stumbled upon is merely a continuation of modernity’s destruction of the construct of the self. Science fiction as a genre must take place in a world unknown to the reader. However, that world still operates as a critique of the reader’s own. Therefore, Wells critiques modernity through the fictional year 802,701. An author writes,

The Time Machine reminds us that science fiction is especially significant in an examination of the subjectivity of modernity. Works in this genre often focus of spatial and temporal mobility and on the realization of the imaginary alien scenarios. The principle of science fiction is the simulation of another world which is both alien yet representable through the conventions, competencies and technologies we already know. (Bignell 143)

Furthermore, Wells uses the medium of science fiction and the juxtaposition of “good” (the Eloi) and “evil” (the Morlocks) to “meditate on specific deep contradictions that he finds in human experience” (Huntington246). Thus, through The Time Machine Wells continues his critique of modernity and its annihilation of the individual, and eventually human intellect. Wells states that individuality is “For Wells it was through individualities that the modern state could avoid stagnation and continue to progress” (Hale 263). Without this forward constant forward progress, a race will necessarily become complacent and stagnant. The result is a race like the Eloi, “[I]t is their routine acceptance of ‘bourgeois refinement’ which renders them incapable of assuming anything but a posture of self-satisfied incomprehension…will by an inevitable mutation lead to [the] form of ineffectiveness…of Wells’s Eloi” (Hale 263). Therefore, without the construction of the self independent of occupation and function in society, Wells’s future will come about.

When The Time Traveller enters the world of 802,701, he witnesses the degradation of human intellect and, by extension, of humanity itself. Modern capitalism caused the downfall of humanity,

I tried to preserve myself from the horror that was coming upon me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness. Man had been content to live in ease and delight upon the labours of his fellow-man, had taken Necessity as his watch-word and excuse, and in the fullness of time Necessity had come home to him. (Wells 68)

Through capitalizing the abstract noun “Necessity,” Wells draws attention to his ironic use of the word. Necessity has driven mankind to create monumental structures, change society, and advance technologically. Necessity had caused the upper class, the Eloi’s ancestors, to drive the lower class underground. Now, Necessity causes the lower classes to feed upon their former masters. Necessity has destroyed humanity. The Morlock branch of the human family tree has devolved to a point that they have become literally inhuman. Humanity has devolved so much that the Eloi’s very clothing is fashioned from the skin of Eloi the Morlocks have eaten (McLean236).

The Eloi’s complacency and satisfaction with their pleasure has caused them to become something less than human as well. The Time Traveller muses, “These Eloi were mere fatted cattle, which the ant-like Morlocks preserved and preyed upon…” (Wells 68). Thus, while capitalism has created the semblance of prosperity for some, the destruction of the individual has led to the ultimate destruction of humanity. Neither race is even capable of sustaining itself. Without their food source, the Morlocks would starve. If not for the Morlocks, the Eloi would have no clothing or population control, thus exhausting their food supply and starving.

Even though both species have lost much of their human sensibilities, the Eloi maintain enough similarity to humanity that The Time Traveller identifies with their plight. He says, “the Eloi had kept too much of the human form not to claim my sympathy, and to make me perforce a sharer in their degradation…” (Wells 68). Thus we can still analyze modernity through the subhuman Eloi, for the principles of the Wellsian critique still apply. Additionally, despite their hideousness, the Morlocks maintain one of the peculiarities of humanity: speech (Stover 115). Because both the Eloi and Morlocks still contain some measure of humanity, we may analyze their future world as a critique of modern social structure.

In the Wellsian construction of the future, the dichotomy between the Morlocks and the Eloi is presented as an anti-utopia. Definitionally speaking, the anti-utopia may be defined as follows: “If the utopian-dystopian form tends to construct single, fool-proof structures which solve social dilemmas, the anti-utopian form discovers problems, raises questions, and doubts” (Huntington124). A dystopia, in turn, may be defined as a “utopia in which the positive (‘more perfect principle’) has been replaced by a negative” (Huntington124). Thus, Wells uses the future to question the idea of a utopia in which all labor has ceased.[1] Additionally, Wells’ utopias are not meant to present solutions, but warn humanity about the course it has embarked upon. “Wells’s uneasiness with the utopian mode in one who began as a writer of…ironic utopias…which deliberately sets out to superannuate previous utopian texts…[Wells] sharply contrasts the utopia with a ‘anticipatory tale,’ a genre in which…he…feels more as home” (Parrinder 115). Thus Wells’s “utopia” in The Time Machine is a cautionary tale of what capitalism will create.

Wells presents an anti-utopia in which the Morlocks act as the State, representing the corporate masters of Wells’s own day. Wells believed that, in order for a utopia to exist, the breeding of children should be overseen by some larger entity. He writes,

…There is a pressing need for such negative eugenics in the Atlantic communities, due to the steady elimination of death selection from human conditions…The only case that has been made out with any degree of conviction is the case for the segregation and sterilization of mental defectives…” (Partington 76).

Thus the state, in order for humankind to progress, must forcibly sterilize some in order to keep the population of “undesirables” low. Because crime and mental retardation does not exist among the Eloi, [2] this must have been accomplished at some point in human history. Furthermore, “Wells hypothesized that the state would of necessity have to control human reproduction. In A Modern Utopia, Wells declared, ‘Utopia will control the increase of its population. Without the determination and ability to limit that increase as well as to stimulate it whenever it is necessary, no Utopia is possible…’” (Hale 266). Thus the state must go beyond sterilizing the undesirables, but also control the entirety of the population. This has been realized among the Eloi, for it seems to The Time Traveller, “The difficulty of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population had ceased to increase” (Wells 35). He assumes this is because of a social breakthrough that occurred in the intervening period. He finds out, in fact, that the Morlocks “probably saw to the breeding of [the Eloi]” (Wells 68). Thus, through the context of eugenics, the Morlocks have become the State. Because Wells’s vision of the future is a critique of Wells’s own society, the Morlocks represent the oppressive upper class in his own time. The result of such oppression is the same oppression and utilitarianism Wells sees in his time.

The Eloi’s culture, shaped by the Morlocks’ dominance, inherently rejects individuality in all forms. If individuality is that which makes one unique from the average member of society, no individual exists among the Eloi when the Time Traveller arrives. He tells his listeners, “The dinner and my conversational beginnings ended, I noted for the first time that almost all those who had surrounded me at first were gone” (Wells 30). Even though his initial “friends” leave and are never seen again, his interaction with the Eloi are unchanged by the constant revolving door of little people. When The Time Traveller saves Weena from the lake, he creates an individual, for she becomes differentiated from the rest of her race. She is the only major character who is given a name other than her function in society. She is the Individual. Weena is also the only character who dies in a Morlock attack. The anti-utopia of futurity, in mirroring present-day capitalism, destroys individualism. The only true Individual created throughout the novel is the only character which dies. The message is clear: individuality has been killed by the ever-advancing Necessity. Humanity will be destroyed unless utility is sacrificed for personhood.

When a society forces a man to construct his self-identity solely upon his occupation, he loses all sense of individuality. He becomes nothing more than a cog in the machine of industry, useful at best, expendable at worst. Absent intervention, the upper class will oppress the lower class, forcing them into more and more dehumanizing situations. The result of such oppression and unrestrained pursuit of Necessity is portrayed in The Time Machine. The possibility of Individualism is destroyed; everyone must serve his or her function without question and without deviation. As The Time Traveller discovered as he traveled beyond 802,701, the result is extinction. Necessity, modernity, and the deconstruction of self will destroy the world it hopes to improve.

Works Cited

Bignell, Jonathan. “Another Time, Another Space: Modernity, Subjectivity, and The Time Machine.” Wellsian: The Journal of the H. G. Wells Society 22 (1999) 34-47. Web.24 Feb. 2011.

Bloom, Harold. H. G. Wells.New York: Infobase Publishing. 2005.4 April 2011. Web.

Hale, Piers J. “Labor and the Human Relationship with Nature: The Naturalization of Politics in the Work of Thomas Henry Huxley, Herbert George Wells, and William Morris.” Journal of the History of Biology 36.2 (2003): 249-284. Web.24 Feb. 2011.

Huntington, John. “Utopian and Anti-Utopian Logic: H.G. Wells and His Successors (Logique utopique et anti-utopique; H.G. Wells et sa descendance).” Science Fiction Studies 9.2 (1982): 122-146. Web.24 Feb. 2011.

McLean, Steven. “A Swiftian Fable: The Origin of Leather in H.G. Well’s The Time Machine.” Notes and Queries 57.2 (2010) 236. Web.24 Feb. 2011.

“modernity, n.”. OED Online. March 2011.OxfordUniversityPress. Web. 4 April 2011.

Parrinder, Patrick. “Utopia and Meta-Utopia in H.G. Wells (Utopie et méta-utopie dans l’oeuvre de H.G. Wells).” Science Fiction Studies 12.2 (1985) 115-128. Web.24 Feb. 2011.

Partington, John S. “The Death of the Static: H.G. Wells and the Kinetic Utopia.” Utopia Studies 11.2 (2000) 96-111. Web.24 Feb. 2011.

Sanders, Scott. “Invisible Men and Women: The Disappearance of Character in Science Fiction.” Science Fiction Studies 4.1 (1977) 14-24. Web.24 Feb. 2011.

Wells, H. G. The Time Machine: An Invention. Ed. Leon Stover.Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc. 1996. Print.

Wells, H. G. The Time Machine.Norwalk: The Heritage Press. 1964. Print.

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[1] Labor is necessary because, without it, according to the previous Wells quotation, all society will grind to a halt

[2] Beyond that accomplished by evolution

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