The Disadvantages of Capitalism Minkie Shadow College

In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, the unnamed narrator, commonly referred to as the Time Traveler, creates a device that is capable of time travel, and proceeds to meet two humanoid species of the far distant future. The Time Traveler’s adventure is commonly accepted by readers as that of a Victorian era man who experiences thousands of millennia through the boundless exploration of time. This initial interpretation fails to incorporate Wells’ underlying themes of evolution of humanity, class division, and the effects of capitalism to the Time Traveler’s current culture. If this key aspect of the Time Traveler’s account goes unnoticed, readers will be ill-equipped to fully comprehend Wells’ ultimate analogy, the struggle between the capitalist and laborer. The relationship between the Eloi and Morlocks, the two divergent species of the author’s future, is a representation of the characteristics and future projections of the 19th century Victorian era, presented through an early rendition of science-fiction. In this essay, I will analyze the analogy of the Eloi and Morlocks, displaying Wells’ latent argument about what will happen to mankind if capitalism persists to take advantage of workers for the benefit and welfare of the...