Is The Devolution Of The Society In H. G. Wells The Time Machine

In “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveler travels into the future using his time machine. In the future, he sees “very beautiful and graceful creature[s]”(Wells 25), whom he later names as the “Eloi” (Wells 58). The Time Traveler realizes that these creatures language is “excessively simple” and usually consists of “two words”, just like how babies would speak (Wells 45). Not only that he finds out the Elois live in “the relaxed communism of their way of life” (Bergonzi 43). For example, they would all live in the same place and eat the same diets, which is a fruit. As the Time Traveler explores, he finds out there there are no government, religion, and many other that are present today. The Time Traveler assumes that these Elois

He later calls them the “Morlocks” (Wells 57) and finds out that these Morlocks come out at night from the wells and hunt the Elois. The story is mainly focused on the devolution of the society and the humans. Sigmund Freud explained that the “order” is one of the important characteristic of the civilization (40). However, in the Elois’ and Morlocks’ society, there are no one to keep order, and no laws that govern the whole society. Not only that Freud explained that man’s “intellectual, scientific and artistic achievements are the leading role” to the characteristic of the civilized value (41). Elois seem to have no intelligence to grasp the abstract ideas such as when the Time Traveler explains that that he has time traveled to the future, they can not understand what he is saying and did not have interest to continue to listen to him. Also, Elois seem to have no scientific and artistic achievements since the Time Traveler “could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind” nowhere in the cities (Wells 48) nor could he find any paintings in the cities. Since there are no machinery, there can not be any scientific

Fear, anger , violence, and aggression are all aspects of primitive values. And when people feel fear and anger, they tend to regress to primitive state and become violent and aggressive. For example, when the Time Traveler finds out that his time machine is stolen, he becomes aggressive and uses violence. The Time Traveler “had [Eloi] by the loosen part of [Eloi’s] robe round the neck , and began dragging him towards the sphinx” (Wells 44). However, when the Time Traveler saw the “horror and repugnance” on that Eloi’s face, he let go of the Eloi (Wells 44). He comes to his senses and realizes that this kinds of violence do not help him retrieve his time machine. Another instance where the Time Traveler felt the urge to use violence is when the Time Traveler finds a weapon to fight off the Morlocks. When he gains a weapon, he desires “very much to kill a Morlock or so” (Wells 78). This kind of belief could have arose due to his anger and fear toward the Morlocks. Since he was angry that these Morlocks are killing off the Elois, and at the same time feared that these Morlocks might kill him and Weena, one of the Eloi. But he soon calms down and think objectively and decide not to for Weena and his Time Machine. Furthermore, when the Time Traveler fights the Morlocks, he feels “the strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard