DeepSummary
This episode is a discussion of H.G. Wells' novel 'The Time Machine', exploring its themes and influences. David Runciman analyzes the story's portrayal of human evolution and the separation of classes, with the refined 'Eloi' class living in idle luxury above ground, while the brutish 'Morlocks' live underground as their servants and food source. He sees parallels with Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' in depicting the splitting of humanity's civilized and bestial natures.
Runciman situates 'The Time Machine' in the context of late Victorian anxieties about social progress, arguing that Wells imagines human advancement eventually reversing into decadence and primitivism once the driving conflict between classes is resolved. The novel depicts an almost Swiftian disgust with the physical body's obstruction of intellectual and moral perfection.
Runciman contrasts 'The Time Machine' with Wells' later speculative work 'The Shape of Things to Come', which diverged from the former's pessimism by envisioning a rationally-organized world government emerging from the ashes of a frozen world war. He argues that history ultimately did not bear out Wells' visions of humanity's intellectual and physical natures separating or his fears of progress becoming futile.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- H.G. Wells' novel 'The Time Machine' reflects late Victorian anxieties about social progress causing humanity's civilized and brutish natures to separate into distinct species, rendering further progress futile.
- The novel depicts this separation through the idle, decadent 'Eloi' living above ground and the animalistic 'Morlocks' serving them below, paralleling Robert Louis Stevenson's duality in 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'.
- Runciman argues Wells believed human advancement required the driving tension between humanity's intellectual/refined and physical/bestial aspects, with their complete separation causing stagnation.
- Wells' later work 'The Shape of Things to Come' envisioned a more optimistic emergence of world government from a frozen future war, suggesting history had not borne out his fears in 'The Time Machine'.
- The episode contrasts Wells' early pessimism in 'The Time Machine' with his later, more nuanced view that civilization's rational and brutish sides are inseparable and drive continuous social progress.
- Runciman interprets 'The Time Machine' as depicting an almost Swiftian disgust with the human body's obstruction of philosophical and moral perfection.
- The episode analyzes 'The Time Machine' as a seminal late Victorian sci-fi work exploring the era's concerns about accelerating social changes and human evolution.
- Runciman situates Wells' imaginings within the imperial adventure story genre while emphasizing their basis in contemporary scientific/evolutionary discourse.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “This is clearly the extension of the contest that we have already started to see in the year 1895, which is the separation out of the classes. This is about human classes going their separate ways, or, as he says, the separation out of capital and labor.“ by David Runciman
- “The latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter that accompanies all our series is going to be out tomorrow. This is the first one to accompany the fiction series, so it'll be about Middlemarch and Phineas Redux and Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde and the time machine.“ by David Runciman
- “Wells thought that the thing that drives progress is the fact that the human contains both the light and the dark, the overground and the underground, and it's the contest between them that pushes the story on.“ by David Runciman
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Episode Information
Past Present Future
Ben Walker
6/6/24
H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) isn’t just a book about time travel. It’s also full of late-19th century fear and paranoia about what evolution and progress might do to human beings in the long run. Why will the class struggle turn into savagery and human sacrifice? Who will end up on top? And how will the world ultimately end?
Next time: Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children
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