The Time Machine

The Time Machine

As I understand it, Darwin in his book ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES published

in 1865, argues that natural selection leads to adaptive improvement.

Or even, if evolution isn't under the influence of natural selection,

this could still lead to divergence and diversity. At one time, there

was a single ultimate ancestor, and from this, hundreds of millions of

separate individual species evolved. This process where one species

splits into two different species is called speciation. Subsequent

divergence leads to a wider separation of taxonomic units, the genera,

the families, the orders, the classes, etc. Creatures that are

completely different, for example, snails and monkeys, evolved from

ancestors who originally evolved from a single species in a speciation

event.

Darwin's ideas were only thirty years old when Wells wrote THE TIME

MACHINE. We can see that the future Wells predicts was clearly

influenced by Darwin.

Firstly, Wells has created a species that is subterranean and are

called Morlocks. The Morlocks have evolved from people who worked

underground in mines, or, underground in general. As a consequence of

this, as the species were so used to being underground, in order to

accommodate their needs, larger and larger factories were built

underground. Wells also says that the whole Morlock community live

underground and only emerge during the evening as the sun affects

their skin and eyes. The Morlocks create clothes, shoes and give food

to the Elois The Morlocks, which are the dominant species take elderly

or ill Elois down to their subterranean community and eat them.

Wells created another species, called T...

... middle of paper ...

...iation of wealth in the interest of the ruling class. It

follows that in communism there is no state.

In THE TIME MACHINE, Wells shows us that we are not necessarily the

last evolution and that no one can predict how the future will turn

out. He uses the time traveller to say even he thought that mankind

would just keep on getting stronger and more powerful over the years.

Wells was clearly influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution as the

species have evolved from the people of today. The Morlocks evolved

from people who mined underground or worked in artificial light. The

Elois however evolved from middle and upper class people.

Also Karl Marx and his communism ideals inspired Wells as both species

live in one area and live together. None of the species in the time

machine have diversified into the rural areas.