44
social structure. No preceding genre so beautifully combined the ethical and aesthetic to achieve
a social commentary on the increasing possibilities for good and evil.
52
The complex social
atmosphere in which science fiction developed allowed for a diverse range of topics to be
explored—from the moral qualms of technology to the prospects of exploration. In an age of
progress where ideas were moving faster than they ever had before, change became a constant
rule.
53
Science fiction, as a “form of enlightened social critique” likewise adopted, or rather was
founded upon, this same view.
54
One of the foremost literary masters of nineteenth century science fiction, Herbert
George Wells, saw the unprecedented rate of change as the defining characteristic of the
nineteenth century. He wrote several works dealing with said change, including his 1901 non-
fiction, Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life
and Thought.
55
Wells, known for being a man “not pleased with the world he lived in,” did not
leave his fascination with the future of mankind exclusively in non-fiction.
56
Instead, Wells used
his knowledge of nineteenth century science to enhance his fictional glimpse at the fate of
mankind in his work The Time Machine. Written in 1895, The Time Machine showcases Wells’s
masterful marriage of the Romantic ideals of his Victorian England to the popular debates of
scientific and human change. These conditions culminate in a work that critiques social behavior
and humanity.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
52
!Paul!K.!Alkon,!Science$Fiction$Before$1900:$Imagination$Discovers$Technology!(New !Yo rk,!!
!!!!!!!!Twayne!Publishers,!1994),!xi.!
53
!Malmgren,!Worlds$Apart:$Narratology$of$Science$Fiction,!5.!
54
!Peter!Y.!Paik,!From$Utopia$to$Apocalypse:$Science$Fiction$and$the$Politics$of$Catastrophe!!
!!!!!!!!!!Minneapolis,!University!of!Minnesota!Press,!2010),!3.!!
55
!Alkon,!Science$Fiction$Before$1900:$Imagination$Discovers$Technology,!15.!
56
!J.!Kagarlitski,!The$Life$and$Thought$of$H.$G.$Wells,!translated!by!Moura!Budberg!(New!York:!!
!!!!!!!!!Barnes&Nobles,!1966),!xi.!