The ‘Well’ of Satire in Romanticism:
The interplay of scientific and imperialist romanticism in
shaping H.G. Wells’ vision for the future.
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The ‘Well’ of Satire in Romanticism:
The interplay of scientific and imperialist romanticism in
shaping H.G. Wells’ vision for the future.
I Introduction
If we do not end war,
It will end us.
H.G. Wells.
Evgenii Zamyatin – “...The heretics must provide a remedy for the entropy of human thought. Such a heretic, I believed, was Herbert George Wells.”1
The traditional notions of imperialism and science endure as profound ideals within and beyond the late Victorian era. Science, in its broad sense, manifests as a central challenge to established value systems. In direct correlation to scientific methods, imperialist ideologies induce colonial connotations of cultural, economic or military dominion over a nation or nations, beyond Wells’ Victorian context.The extrapolation of thesecontextual concerns, appropriating the invasion
1 Roger, A. Breger, Ask What You Can Do for Your Country – The Film Version of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and the Cold War, p. 2
stories in H.G. Wells’, The Time Machine (1895)and The War of the Worlds (1898),allowshis perspective of the future, albeit complex, to take shape.
Wells dissidently examines the ‘possible’of science fiction through contextual examination of Victorian imperial and scientific concerns. This interplay, enmeshed in both literature and society,foregrounds the new tensions of Wells’ dynamic period through his intricate representation of Romantic and Modernist ideas. The interlacing of technicist and imperial ideals is underpinned by contextual analysis of industrialisation, hegemony and eugenic experimentation.Wells’ primary and most clearly expressed anxiety ofsociety’s over-reliance on technology highlights his critique of contextual values. In essence, this underscores these concerns transcending time, echoing the cynicism and complexities of H.G. Wells and his vision for the future.
Wells’ analysis of scientific and imperial ideas, such as colonial domination and racial tensions of the time, stresses the contextual concerns he propagates for a good future to be had. The intertwined nature of these conceptsportrays both Wells’ refusal of Victorian fears, such as technology driven capitalism, and the privilege of certain imperial prejudices of racial contempt for the weaker races. This discussion effectively broadens the responder’s understanding of the need for Wells’ revolutionary medium of discourse – barbed satire. The reciprocal network emphasisesthe vulnerabilities of his nation’s expansive enterprise and the underpinning ideas of individuality and industrial growth whichit values. Wells’ both challenges and upholds this sentiment due to the complexities of his interplay and contrasting representation of ideas, challenging the reader’s thoughts and asserted values in their present world.
The value-laden concept of Utopianism, respective to temporal context and accommodating for changing social values, has been appreciated throughout history as an attainable ‘realm of peace.’2Wells’complex interchangeof imperial and scientific romanticism both highlights and critiques the failures of Utopian philosophy and long-adhered perceptions promulgated by political doctrine. Wells’antithetical illustration of this Utopian vision can be observed in his dystopic universal texts,The Time Machineand The War of the Worlds. Both texts clearly challenge divine or natural processes through imperial and unchecked scientific values, hence act as cautionary tales.
Underpinning Wells’ cautionary warning of the vestiges of humanity leitmotif, embedded within his arguments, is the ‘Well’of satire. This dynamicity is clearly reflected by the scientific concerns of the Victorian era, primarily the beginnings of eugenics and industrial economieshaving a direct impact on informing modern science fiction texts. Significantly, this is displayed by the capitalist and technological anxieties of Wells as the progenitor of Science Fiction, reshaped and transformed in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932)and Fritz Lang’s
2 Armitt, Lucy, The Utopia as an Underlying Feature of all Major Modes of Fantasy, p. 12
Metropolis (1927).Hence, this adds veracity to Wells’ insights and arguments inThe Time
Machineand the War of the Worlds, expanded, modified and reshaped, continuing to provide crucial critical and contextual frameworks for a wide range of theorists and writers.
II Satire in literature:
Satire is an art form which through hyperbolised forms of human vice, engenders a sense of ridicule to expose the comic nature of a particular person, place or event in history within popular culture of the time. Satire in literature, whilst evolved and manufactured over the centuries, has its roots stemmed heavily in the English Victorian era. Thepolitically satiric texts of Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Sullivan which begun the humour of satire, depicted the tumult of social order and the hilarity of igniting class distinctions, particularly the follies of the aristocracy. One such salient text in rendering the beginnings of scientific, and to a lesser extent, imperialist parody, is a satire entitled Vestiges of Creationappearing in the Punch magazine in September 1859.3 Preceding Charles Darwin’s, The Origins of Species, this timely piece situates the reader in an entirely different perspective.The satire juxtaposes prehistoric biological qualities of a distant natural world, with Belgravia’s ironic urbancleanliness through visual and verbal irony. These voiced concerns would act as a foundation for Wells’ satire of evolutionary science and the imperialism of the British Empire, portrayed less than half a century later in The
3 The ‘vestiges of humanity’ motif has attracted critical interest. The underpinning ideal has been extracted from the Vestiges of Creation trope from the Punch Magazine, 1859
Time Machine andThe War of the Worlds.
The Vestiges of Creationreads:
The slimy reptile here, no doubt,
Wriggled and crawled in greed or malice:
Now see the Courtier creep about—
Near as he dares to yonder Palace.
(Punch 1859, 37:100)4
Albeit these satires remaining invaluable texts from the Victorian era, informing English audiences of this art form, H.G. Wells incisively revolutionises the concepts of satire and parody.Wells clearly veers away from the light-hearted disposition that initially comprised this entertaining and witty language.This transformation is highlightedby Wells’ stern critique of the anthropocentric ideals and values of the British Empire, as explored inThe Time Machine and The War of theWorlds.The auteur highlights the concerns he strongly believes will only leave vestiges of humanity due to what he perceives as society’s powerlessness against imperialism and scientific progression.Personifying Wells’ post-apocalyptic visions of satireare his
4 Anonymous publication, Vestiges of Creation, (Punch 1859, 37:100)
perspectives on White imperialism of the Victorian class system and the advancements of technology as “the incredible Time Machine...[gave] access to a whole new world” ironically in The Time Machine. It is with this manifestation of scientific and imperialist interplay, that Wells’ cynicism of these over-arching concerns are examined and critiqued. As a result, this emulates Wells’ one clear concern of GreatBritain’s over-dependence on technology.Aldiss reinforces this, affirming both The Time Machinebut more so inThe War of the Worlds,“show[ing] the Imperialist powers of the day and how it felt to be on the receiving end of an invasion armed with superior technology.”5Subsequently, Wells’ ‘new’ form of satire, like texts that both preceded and succeeded The Time Machineand The War of the Worlds, highlight the physical and spiritual degradation of the inherent values of human integrity and compassion, leaving only vestiges of humanity.
III Imperialist and Scientific Romanticism—A complex form of parody?
H.G. Wells communicates the metaphysical anxieties of his Romantic zeitgeist through the interrelationship of science and imperialism.6 This barbed ironycredits Wells as not only one of the founding fathers of the science fiction genre, but also as a proprietor of parody in manipulating and shaping the divisive concerns of his Romantic/Modernist context.These
5Aldiss in Fitting, Peter, Estranged Invaders – The War of the Worlds,(1973:71), p.9
6 King, Neil, The Romantics – Background to English Literature, p 87
complexities explored in The Time Machineand The War of the Worlds,foreshadow the vestiges of humanity Wells perceives, expressed in The War of the Worldsby the Martians morbidly injecting “the fresh, living blood of other creatures” directly into their veins.Hence, this cynically empowers, but also disruptsWells’ voice for change.
This interplay in questioning unbridled advances in scientific and technological progression is highlighted by the emerging, yet ubiquitous nature of science and technicism. Wells’ assertion of humanity’s powerlessness is evoked by the notion of timein The Time Machine, as the ethical corollaries of humanity remain a prominent issue then and now. This imperative is affirmed by the “preposterous and incredible Time Machine”7 itself establishing “no difference between time and any three dimensions of space except that out consciousness moves along with it,” revealed in The Time Machine. This satiric vision is further presented by the dichotomy of arising technological implications and the Romanticpurity and surrealism of nature’s force. This is represented by the figurative language in The Time Machine; “the air was free of gnats, the earth from weed or fungi; everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither.” Thus, this visual contrast against the pallid bodies of the Morlocks as the scientific “Ventilators of the Underworld”, posits the macabre nature of a capitalistic divide.8In doing so, Wells more strongly reflects the Romantic value of God’s immanence within nature offering conciliatory peace and warmth to mankind, rendering
7 Tokien in Armitt, Lucy, Fantasy Fiction-An introduction, p 144
8 Malmgren, D. Carl, Self and Other in SF: Alien Encounters, p. 7
technologyanathema to rural living.It can thus be concluded that Wells’ dissident voice is still anchored in the primary world of the Victorian era, providing a rural antidote to his technophobic fears surrounding industrial expansion.9
Significantly, however, Wells culminates The Time Machine as a form of parody by interweaving the scientific notion of ‘constructed gravity’ through time, with his visceral portrayal of colonial exploitation.10This ideal, mirroring the Romantic privilege of nationalpride and ‘racial’ prejudices, is symbolic of the Time Traveller’s direct address to the audience, “Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race.” This is stressed further by his personal belief of extinguishing the impurities of the weaker fabric lingering in society. Wells documents this further in his essay Anticipations (1901)and even A Modern Utopia (1905)where this is realised by Wells’ contempt for the “mildly incompetent drunkards” of “The Dull” and “The Base.”11 Thus, through this sceptical meshing, Wells’ direct immersion of Romantic ideologies and its influences on modernity are grounded, reinforced by The Time Machine’sintertetxual links to Stevenson’s Treasure Island.12This parallelism is supported by the unnamed intrepid explorer, reminiscent of European dominion, amongst an imperialdivide of the effete Eloi. This ruling class is juxtaposed to the “ant-like” and “nauseatingly inhuman”
9 Philmus, M. Robert, Visions and Re-Visions [RE]Constructing Science Fiction, Liverpool University Press, p 23
10Baudrillard, Jean, Simulacra and Simulation, Simulacra and Science Fiction, p.124-126
11 Wells, H.G., A Modern Utopia, p. 69 The castes Wells portrays, including the Dull and the Base underpin A Modern Utopia and are repeated throughout.
12 Hufnagel, Peter, The Empire of the Future :Imperialism and Modernism in H.G. Wells, p. 2-4
Morlocks, who, expressed through the zoological simile, avariciously “feed on the Eloi like cattle.”The Morlocks rarely surface the above ground world due to their lack of melanin and ironic but morbid “great, lidless, pinkish grey-eyes.”This barbed satire initiated by the Empire trope of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, infers the Europeans as the superior race and the grotesque Morlock tribe as being of cannibal ancestors perishing along with the Eloi. This Romantic concern is concluded by the Euro-centric unquestioning obedience of Friday in Robinson Crusoeto his White master whom he repeats as such. The omniscient ‘conqueror’ in The Time Machinesimilarly expresses this by assuming ownership of the Eloi, Weena. Wells compares the androgynous specimen to victims of racial tuberculosis, depicting her in the negative connotations; “lazy, slow and dull.”Hence, this adds authority to Wells’ cynical complexities, represented on an imperialist level by the distortion of his pacifist‘class equality.’ Rather, Wellsvoices “man’s unsatisfied truth”through what he deems accepted White imperial desires.13
This interaction of scientific and imperialist romanticism is strengthened by similar notions of time and technicism in Wells’ The War of the Worlds.Wells’ vivid illumination of the “impeccable blend of the familiar and the strange”14 is emphasised by common Southern English towns of Horsell, Ottershaw, Woking and mainly Ogilvy, as battlegrounds filled with morbid,semi-globular “figures of black and poisonous vapour.” This is ironically empowered by the
13Mclean, Steven, H.G. Wells :Interdisciplinary Essays: Cambridge Scholars Publishing , p. 27
14Law, Richard, Artful Irony in The War of the Worlds, p. 3-6
omniscient narrator of the Martians through the direct voice, “boilers on stilts, a hundred feet high.” Wells’ instils similar scientific scepticism of time as in The Time Machine,bysignalling a possible evolutionary pathway for humans in The War of the Worlds, as embodied by the Romantic motif of “blurred” vision.15The aesthetic articulation of artifice regards the eye to be the ‘gatekeeper’ to the soul, yet is tarnished by the aliens’ “eyes bugging out fearfully from eyestalks.”This is sub-humanly reinforced by the Martian void as a harrowing symbolfor the potential evolution of humans, as echoed by the cataclysmic eruption of “large, burdensome creeping aliens.” Despite this, invasion, a sense of solace is fostered by the Romantic inference of God’s omnipotence within the forces of nature, similarly displayed by the overwhelming presence of Providence in Robinson Crusoe.16This is strengthened by the perceived zenith of Martians’ science and technology, slain “by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put on earth,”thus mirroring the value of scepticism pioneered by Wells’ in The Time MachineThis bacterium to which the Martians have no natural immunity, demonstratesWells’ increasingcynicism of eugenics as a saviourof which he initially supported. In effect, the auteuracknowledges the Romantic concern that the scientific rationalisation of nature must be “darkness still,”existentially viewing a morbid future lacking individualityin consequence.17
Wells is further established as a true visionary of satire in the adroit illusion, War of the Worlds,
15 Philmus, M. Robert, Visions and Re-Visions [RE]Constructing Science Fiction, Liverpool University Press, p 11
16 Defoe, Daniel, Robinson Crusoe, Penguin Classics, p. 35, 54, 111 Providence as a source of divine guidance is repeated throughout
17Mackenzie and Mackenzie in Partington, S. John, The Death of the State: H.G. Wells,ref 6, p. 124
through hegemonic realism and his intense tone of “primitive modernity.”18Wells eloquently reveals this by ironically portraying the British Empire, the most powerful Empire in the world, militarily and resourcefully, effortlessly subsumed by the “mechanical colossi” from Mars. Whilst mirroring Schiaparelli as the man who watched the red planet, this does effectively convey Wells’ questioning of the reader as one filled with paranoia under “the shadow of an aperture” in The War of the Worlds. This is exemplified by Wells’ profound contestation of the anthropocentric presumptions of man through what is viewed as a critique of Euro-centric hegemony.
In contrast to Verne who envisioned the beneficial wonders of technology, Wells conveys a choke-holding and acknowledgement of being under “a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel.” The satiric horrors of biological evolution extending the Vestiges of Creation, is supported by the graphic illustration of Woking as “the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction of the hearth...the eastern heather was on fire.” The counterpoint to the vestige of humanity symbolic of the emaciated clergyman, is foreshadowed by his cries, “Repulse of the Martians! London in Danger!” This explicitly distorts war as a means of societal progression, in a contrasting light to The Time Machine. The differing angles provided do however “give aesthetic form to the contradictions existing within our own civilisation and its values,” adding another level of complexity to Wells’
18 Pearson, Richard, Primitive Modernity-H.G, Wells and the Prehistoric Man of the 1890s, p.9
vision and impact on the reader. 19
IV Wellsian Symbols of Demise:
Wells’ appropriates Romantic motifs in examining the scientific and imperial concerns of his zeitgeist. The interplay of imperialist and scientific romanticism is conveyed through ubiquitous cultural iconography to reconcile the responder’s initially unrecognisable facade of these concerns. The exploration of the negative potential of European conquest intertwined with theresistance to science, is reinforced by a series of semiotics resonating these concerns in The Time Machineand The War of the Worlds. The eloquent representation of these recurring symbols, crystalliseWells’ cautionary warnings of humanity’s vestiges. Overall, Wells privileges juxtaposing Romantic natural qualities, illustrated similarly in both texts.
The dark underlyings containing the futuristic antagonist/s of each text, is directly correlatedtothe interplay of imperialist and scientific romanticism. This incisively portrays Wells seemingly contradictory viewpoints on the importance of class equality in The Time Machine.More coherently, this is highlighted by the subordination of humanity under ironic technological superiority, expressed vividly in The War of the Worlds.Wells distinctly juxtaposes the two sub-species existent in the year 802,701 AD; the banal Eloi typical of the ruling classes, and the starkly contrasted cannibalistic Morlocks who “feed on the Eloi like cattle” as there is simply
19 Huntington, John, The Logic of Fantasy,p.143
nothing else edible.Extending the ironic proclamation, “Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough, as many wrong theories are!” is the Time Traveller’s eye-witness account of the Morlocks. The Wellsian symbol of demise is satirically portrayed by the working class Morlocks continuing to revert back to their pre-established custom of serving the upper classes in their cave-like dwellings; deemed the “Ventilators of the Underworld.” Imparting the inherent values of his Fabian Socialist class against capitalism, we can view this uprising by the Morlocks as a Marxist “class consciousness” movement.20 Therefore, this strongly emphasises the detriments of industrial science and technology in furthering the inequalities and social stratification of Victorian classes, particularly the exploitation of the poor for the benefits of the rich.