The Time Traveller Research Paper

HG Wells’ novel The Time Traveller was influenced by his contemporary Charles Darwin and his evolutionary work, On the Origin of the Species, in several ways. The Time Traveller is set at the turn of the 19th century and then moves forward to the year 802,701 AD. In this story our protagonist spends much of the time observing how the Morlocks and the Eloi people evolved, the favorable and not so favorable traits of natural selection, and the limitations that our surrounding climate place on us and our evolution. During his time travels our protagonist makings several parallels between the popular Darwin work and his own plot. In this essay we will explore what the time travels show about these three themes. Specifically in regards to

This is clearly represented by the fact that once he travels forward in time he meets two groups of people; first the Eloi people and then subsequently the seemingly less-human Morlocks. Our protagonists is, at first, assured that the Eloi must be the evolutionized human race. They are smaller but still resemble humans much more than the Morlocks do. He does become aware of some discrepancies to the English Victorian peoples that he is accustomed to. The Eloi, although beautiful, are weak, undisciplined, and generally uninterested which makes them easy targets. He saves the life of and later befriends an Eloi female named Weena, while the other Eloi are too disinterested to notice her peril. Wells gives in readily to Darwin's argument that the human race will continue to evolve. His two archetypes for human evolution, however, set up a strong argument for the other Darwinian concepts that become so widespread; such as natural

The answer Wells’ wanted us to think about was social inequality. The working class, having been forced underground for so long, evolved into a nocturnal peoples. While the upper class, who has of course remain above ground, maintained most of the modern day physical human appearances and lost all of the qualities which make us human. In the story the luxe abundance, for which the upper class has always been envied, is now dulling their minds and bodies making them weak, lazy, and a completely dependant society. The changes in environment do not necessarily create the desired changes in regard to evolution and more particularly social darwinism. It may be that the leisure which being in a higher class affords will be the very thing destroys your humanity in 802,701 years. Alternately, the simpler things in life, like the structure that hard work allows, or a few match sticks against peril in the dark can be more advantageous than any other