SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW ON “TIME MACHINE”

SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW ON DYSTOPIAN FUTURE WITH “TIME MACHINE”

Time Machine is one of the first science fiction novels written in 1890. In the years when the book was written, industrialization had gained quite a speed. Reasons such as the benefits and concerns of this, how it would shape society, may have been the starting point of the book. The time traveler tries to tell his friends that he has time travel and accidentally goes to the year 802,701. Also, concepts such as the fourth dimension mentioned in the book show us that the book is progressive.

The year 802,701 is a time when the concept of power has been reshaped when class separation has reached its peak. People started to look alike; they lost their individuality. The traveler, who expects the future to be better and better, is disappointed. Here, people have evolved according to the social classes in which they are located. Although this is fiction, it is a beautiful metaphor aimed at today’s social discrimination and class conflict. In the book, the emphasis and differentiation of social classes are at the front. Instead of the names of the characters, we identify them by their profession, by the groups they are in.

There are two races here, the Elois and the Morlocks. Elois, those who live above ground, are lazy, eat plants, smell and look good. The Morlocks, those who live underground, are the workers, produce the needs of the above. They are ugly, they have glowing eyes, they have dirty skin. They are sensitive to light and cannot see much. So, at night, they go hunting Elois with the sound of a siren. I think what keeps them underground is their money being paid and the disadvantage of their evolution. Only these two races live. They are so separated and discriminated from each other that they do not understand each other’s languages. By simple comparison, it will not be difficult to understand the similarities of today’s bourgeois and proletarian.

As of today, the ruling of those who have power continues. Elois is not as happy as they seem. Both races are in need of each other, and they are both restless. The biggest changes are the relationship between social classes and inter classes changes. The difference that comes with these changes has created gaps between the two classes. Our time traveler criticizes the Elois use of Morlocks as slaves. This change can be interpreted somewhat more morphologically. Because the conditions that the Morlocks were exposed to have led to biological adaptation and modification over thousands of years. Actually, they were all the same at first. The reason they are at this point is that the strong do not listen to the weak and increasing competition between them.

Elois

Morlocks

Today, the concept of the middle class is slowly disappearing. We are in a socio-economic situation that has evolved only towards the poor and rich. In this case, what is described in the book is not very fictional. As industry and technology are on the rise, people are worried about turning into Elois. At this point, I think of the following questions: “Elois are seen as human beings, why not Morlocks? “. At first, they were both human, and now they are neither. They were individuals of two different classes. But this discrimination, with change and time, has moved so far away from each other in every sense that they called “two different races” instead of “two different classes”. They changed structurally.

Societies have always been in a transformation and change. This, in turn, allowed civilizations, societies to survive and live. If a society fulfills everything good and bad that is expected of itself, it gets lost. And it starts to end on its own. It is impossible to develop and progress when the change disappears, from the relationship between two people to the inter-community relationship. If we run out of things to do, the rule of rules, family, friends, and order is also lost. All are consumed. Everything that has been done has become the same. Their society is now being dragged into a collapse.

The time traveler makes another journey and goes to 30,000,000 years. He saw civilization decline even further. The expected development change and transformation did not progress in direct proportion to time. A society, which was exhausted because there was no change, has now collapsed. One-way progress is one of the reasons for this. Every time, people thought they were improving; they lost their happiness. The author argues that new order is needed to avoid this end. People are strong when they are united, but it has to be the right way. And in the book, bad things always happen to a time traveler when he is alone. It was the rivalry that led society to this destruction.

The main concern is not a dystopian future, it is the point that how social hierarchy and classes evolve. Even if it is a fiction story, we are actually shown how we diverge today. It is all something we witness in our daily lives. Although we are not Eloi and Morlock, it is a time when we are getting away from each other. As an individual, we can start our own little change by taking change and versatility into the center. As the author said, “The future is now!”.

Aslı Diken

REFERENCES

Time Machine,  the book by H. G. Wells (published 1895)

Marmara University, Sociology Department, Sociology of Change and Transition Lecture Notes, 2020