FREE ESSAY ON WELLS AND DARWIN

WELLS AND DARWIN

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, a suburb of London, to a
lower-middle-class family. He attended London University and the Royal College of Science
where he studied zoology. One of his professors instilled in him a belief in social as
well as biological evolution which Wells later cited as the important and influential
aspect of his education. This is how it all began. Maybe without this professor Wells
wouldn't be the famous author he is today. Most of Wells novels are science fiction and
have a great deal of some kind of human society theme, or Darwinism in mind. It is a
theme that is seen in his most famous science fiction writings. H.G. Wells seems to
convey a sense of Darwinism and change in the future of society in his major works. Wells
has been called the father and Shakespeare of science fiction. He is best known today for
his great work in science fiction novels and short stories. He depicted stories of
chemical warfare, world wars, alien visitors and even atomic weapons in a time that most
authors, or even people for that matter, were not thinking of the like. His stories
opened a door for future science fiction writers who followed the trend that Wells wrote
about. His most popular science fiction works include The Time Machine, The Invisible
Man, The War of the Worlds, and The Island of Doctor Moreau. His first novel, The Time
Machine, was an immediate success. By the time the First World War had begun his style of
writing and novels had made him one of the most controversial and best-selling authors in
his time. In the story The Time Machine, Wells expresses his creativity with images of
beauty, ugliness and great details. In this novel Wells explores what it would be like to
travel in this magnificent and beautiful machine. "The criterion of the prophecy in this
case is influenced by the theory of "natural selection." (Beresford, 424) He uses
Darwin's theory in the novel and relates it to the men living in the novel. The men are
no longer struggling to survive, they have all adapted and there is no termination of the
weak. It had practically ceased. His fascination with society in biological terms is also
mentioned, "Shows Wells horizon of sociobiological regression leading to cosmic
extinction, simplified from Darwinism." (Beresford, 424) He took the idea from Darwin but
instead of making it "survival of the fittest", the weak have already died off and only
the fittest are left, which leads to the extinction. His fascination with Darwinism was
one that had not been thought by many in that time, because there were questions of
ethics and religion. "From The Time Machine on, it was generally recognized that no
writer had so completely or so perceptively taken Darwin to heart." (McConnell, 442) He
wasn't the first man to realize and acknowledge the importance of Darwin's theory for the
future of civilization, but he is said to be the first to assimilate that theory into his
stories. Concerning society with the future, The Time Machine is said to be seen as "a
prophecy of the effects of rampant industrialization on that class conflict that was
already, in the nineteenth, century a social powder keg." (McConnell, 438) Wells always
touched upon the subject of society, the destruction of it, and how it would become in
the future due to this destruction and chaos. His view on society was that the classes
would clash and ultimately "they might become two races, mutually uncomprehending and
murderously divided," (Suvin, 435) His predictions of future societies were all much
alike, war-torn class problems, much like what is seen now a days. The narrator of The
Time Machine says of the Time Traveler that he "saw in the growing pile of civilization
only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the
end." (McConnell, 439) This is another reference to society's survival of the fittest, as
he depicts civilization tearing at each other, and in the end, doing away with their
creator. Not all of his predictions and social clashes were horrid and horrendous with
violence. In some of his foretelling of what society would do, he recommended things that
could be done to avoid such things and maybe in the end reach some kind of peace or
togetherness. "That the human race, thanks to its inherited prejudices and superstitions
and its innate pigheadedness, is an endangered species; and that mankind must
learn-soon-to establish a state of worldwide cooperation by burying its old hatreds and
its ancient selfishness, or face extinction." (McConnell, 439) I'm not saying Wells was
some kind of great prophet or a Nostradamus of his time, but it is something that sounds
like a prediction for what is to come and what must be done to avoid and/or overcome the
differences. Wells predictions were not only for the social classes, but also in the
field of warfare weaponry and new innovations not yet seen or heard of in his time. He
went as far as to describe the weapons used, and the inventions never imagined by man.
Among his predictions were the use of armored tanks in war. He even used the phrase
"atomic bomb" before anyone was using it, and described in close detail the power of the
chain reaction explosions. The Island of Doctor Moreau may well be the most famous novel
written by H.G. Wells. It is also said to be his most "systematic study of the
evolutionary dilemma," (Bergonzi, 543 ) as he complicates, once again, the evolutionary
system. Most of the critics said the same thing about the novel, if not similarities.
"The meaning of the novel is found in Darwinism" (Bergonzi, p.543) The island has a
scientist by the name of Doctor Moreau and he changes the animals into new and almost
human like forms. It is like playing with nature and evolving a whole new species out of
what is already there on the island. Just like Charles Darwin came up with his theory of
the unchanged and evolved animals on the Galapagos, H.G. Wells came up with this island
and the scientist there is evolving them on his own. It is also said that the "version of
the island myth conveys a powerful and imaginative response to the implications of
Evolution." (Huntington, 445) which sounds like what I explained, that this is Wells way
of interpreting his own evolution in his science fiction world. He causes a sort of
imbalance among the humans and semi-humans his mad doctor has created on his island. The
imbalance causes a sense of threat of one of the specie's domination in the story, and
causes a puzzling thought of evolution and ethics for the readers. "Moreau's genius is
thwarted by society and so he preys on society," (Huntington, 446) The mad Doctor Moreau
is opposed and against the society that has evolved around him and that he has been
exposed to, so he seeks out to destroy it, by creating his own evolved species. Doctor
Moreau wants to play the creator and eliminator, and bring it together in his own
survival of the fittest game. It reminds me of a story I read my freshman year in high
school, about a man who lives on a deserted island, and the people who are stranded
there, he hunts them for fun. The common factor is they're both trying to make their own
little world with different classes of species. Called one of "Well's finest piece of
sustained imaginative writing" (Beresford, 425 ), The War of the Worlds, is often
considered to be the story that most science fiction authors that came after Wells
follow, or get their ideas from. Wells presents to us an image of human society as the
victim to aliens that are encountered by humans. The theme of the story has been said to
be "Physical destruction of society or dissolution of the social order." (Bergonzi,
p.544) Wells continues on with his Darwinian approach in this story, as it did with The
Island of Doctor Moreau, with it's details of violence and mutilation, as if society is
evolving into some kind of violent species out to destroy itself. With this destruction
of society leads the loss of order in all parts, especially social disorder and chaos. In
the story The War of the Worlds, Wells describes in details how a Martian will eat up a
human being, and we read on in disgust. He then later cautions, "I think that we should
remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit."
(Huntington, 443) He's telling us to think about ethically the meaning to even the most
simplest evolutionary situation. He toys with how evolution has made humans the cream of
the crop, and the top of the food chain. On the other hand, The War of the Worlds places
humans in the middle position, not a at the top. He makes the humans the predators of the
lower forms, and the superior Martians are made out to be at the top in Wells'
evolutionary plans of his story. It is the scary sense that is there to make us think
about and wonder what it would be like to be dominated by another species, the way we
dominate others. Wells seems to like to tickle the mind with ethics. Even though I have
not read a book by H.G. Wells, from what I have read from the critics, I have come to the
conclusion that Wells seems to keep a central theme of Darwinism, and societies future.
The little excerpts I have been given to read, and the critics choice parts of his
stories give the examples of this theme. Wells lived in a time when most of those things
were unimaginable, for no one had heard of most of the things he described, let alone
talked about such things, at least not to the public. It was a manner of writing which
was not seen in his time, and raised questions of ethics and caused Wells to be a
controversial author. His style lead the way for what is science fiction today. 
Bibliography
Darwin. Darwin. 1800