H.G. WellsWendy AdamsEnglish 110203 December 2010

Agenda

Background

Works Overview

The Time Machine

Anticipation

The Outline of History

Mind at the End of Its Tether

Works Cited

Background

Herbert George Wells (1866–1946)an English author, know best for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary. Together with Jules Vern, Wells has been referred to as “The Father of Science Fiction”.

Wells was an outspoken socialist and sympathetic to pacifist views, his later works became increasingly political and didactic.

Works Overview

Time Machine

Anticipation

The Country of the Blind

The Outline of History

Mind at the End of Its Tether

The Time MachineThe initial piece of literature to launch Wells’ popularity is “The Time Machine”. There has been much debate concerning the symbolism of the two races the Time Traveler encounters in the future. The Elois and Morlocks are the evolved human race in the year 802,701. The conflict of good and evil ensues as the Elois attempt to exist in a world inhabited by the Morlocks, which eliminate the Elois in order to survive. The Time Traveler narrates his journey through time and returns to the present to warn his peers of the dangers, which lay in the future. The relation between the Elois and the Morlocks have been said to be the representation of “the contradictory characteristics of the Eloi and Morlock exist within the individual and are held together by love ad intellectual interest”. It communicates the damage an individual is capable of and there must be a balance for equilibrium. The second theory is the two races represent the separate classes among society. The Morlocks signify the wealthy individuals that prey upon the impoverish Elois for personal gain. In the end the general purpose Wells’ attempted to accomplish within his literary works is to educate through the use of didactics.

AnticipationsThe article assesses the prediction made by the late futurologist H. G. Wells in 1901 concerning societal changes for 2001. Anticipations ranged widely in its subject matter, from the future of transport to the future of world order. By the close of the 20th century, he foresaw the collapse of capitalism and the nation state system in great technologically advanced total wars that the tycoons and the politicians could not, ultimately, understand or control. Power would slip through their fingers. They would be swiftly replaced by the technically competent, by scientists and engineers and managers, who would learn from their errors and build a world state of peace and plenty. Taken all in all. Anticipations was a real tour de force.

The Country of the Blind

This tale is a fantasy in which a mountain climber falls into a strange and isolated society of non-seeing persons--claimed to have been in existence for fifteen generations and cut off from the rest of the world by an earthquake. The interloper decides his advantage of sight places him in a superior position to lead the community. However, incident after incident proves him wrong in a society that no longer knows the word "see" and operates perfectly effectively and happily with the other finely tuned senses. Virtually imprisoned, and relegated to serfdom, the visitor begins the acculturation process of learning to live with his own disability--vision. Eventually he falls in love and gains permission to marry if he will agree to have his eyes, which have been deemed the cause of his irrational outburst, removed. His decision and its outcome make up the climax of the story. Despite its fantastic quality, this archetypal myth of falling into a hidden utopia has some peculiar twists that make it appropriate for the medical humanities. It is a reversal of the idea of disability, in which the circumstances alone define disability. The experience of being an "other," in this instance a seeing man in a world of a blind society is the major thrust of this piece.

The Outline of HistoryThe Outline of History began literally as an outline of historical facts and dates that Wells made as a working reference for his earlier works. It was amended and corrected over the course of many years, but was never meant to serve as a basis for a book. But with the close of WWI, H.G. thought that the post-war world needed to have better textbooks, particularly in the subject of history. History texts, he felt, were not only generally illiterate, but riddled with nationalistic bias that made them unfit for the modern world. Taking a big gamble he plunged into a year long frenzy of research and writing that produced the Outline. First published in serial form in soft covers in 1919, it was later revised and compiled into book form in 1920. It was an enormous success selling over one million copies in the first year alone, and since then it has gone on to sell many millions more. Translated into several languages, it has been used as a text in many countries of the world, but its real impact has been outside of the classroom.

Mind at the End of Its Tether

Wells’ legacy in terms of science, technology, and ethics lies in his imaginative application of science to invention, his hopefulness about what science may produce for humanity, but also his warnings about what the abuse of science may mean for the human race. In his nonfiction writings Wells was ambiguous throughout his life, never able to offer a peaceful route to the achievement of his predicted scientific utopias. Although Wells was never certain in his hope or despair for the future, his ultimate mood on the subject is aptly characterized in the title of his final work, published a few months before the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945).

Work Cited “H.G. Wells”. Wikipedia. 3 Dec. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

“The Time Machine H.G. Wells”. enotes. eNotes.com. 2010. http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/time-machine-h-g-wells.

Wagner, Warren. “H.G. Wells and the Genesis of Future Studies”. Explore the future of religion. 1998-2010. http://www.wnrf.org/cms/hgwells.shtml.

Willms, Janice L. “Well, H.G. (Herbert George) The Country of the Blind”. Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database. 3 Oct. 2005. http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=928.

Doyle, Geffrey. “The Outline of History – Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind”. cs.clemson.edu. 20 Apr. 2003. http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~tdoyle/hgwells/outline_hist.shtml.

“Wells, H.G.”. booksrags. 2001-2006. http://www.bookrags.com/research/wells-h-g-este-0001_0004_0/