Eugenics in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine
The end of the 19th century was a period of contradiction between intellectual optimism regarding the teleological progress of history and a social reality of inequality and urban misery. The writer H.G. Wells positioned himself between the two sides, being a biologist and an activist concerned with...
| Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | article |
| Status: | Published version |
| Publication Date: | 2021 |
| Country: | Brasil |
| Institution: | Universidade de Brasília (UnB) |
| Repository: | Em Tempo de Histórias (Online) |
| Language: | Portuguese |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/36456 |
| Online Access: | https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/emtempos/article/view/36456 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Distopia. Ficção científica. Eugenia. Dystopia. Science Fiction. Eugenics. |
| Summary: | The end of the 19th century was a period of contradiction between intellectual optimism regarding the teleological progress of history and a social reality of inequality and urban misery. The writer H.G. Wells positioned himself between the two sides, being a biologist and an activist concerned with the immense difficulties faced by the working class. In his book The Time Machine (1895), these concerns are evident when the protagonist meets the society of the future: a dystopia where the evolution of the human species, left to its own devices, leads to the radicalization of inequality in two different species: the eloi and the morlocks. Conversing with utopian literature, the book serves as a vehicle for the author to criticize his historical context and, then influenced by Francis Galton and Thomas Huxley, reveal what he saw as a solution: the conscious control of the evolution process through eugenics. |
|---|