The Empire of the Future: Imperialism and Modernism in H.G. Wells

The Empire of the Future: Imperialism and Modernism in H.G. Wells

1Late nineteenth centuryEngland controlled a sizeable portion of the world's landIndiaLarge swaths of Africa and ChinaAustraliaCanadaSome outright coloniesOthers held "dominion" statusImperialism

Queen Victoria is named the empress of IndiaMotives for empire: sought wealthmarkets for manufactured goodssources for raw materialsworld power and influenceTechniques of empire The Sword and the TorchSword = military mightTorch = the White Mans burden to civilize barbariansmissionary societies flourishedspreading Christianity in India, Asia, and Africa

Imperialism

The British rationalized imperialist policies:Not by claiming that their acquisitions were in the military or economic interest of the country (which they were)

The British rationalized imperialist policies:But by claiming it was their duty as the superior race to "civilize" primitive peoples who were incapable of governing themselvesUsed Darwin's theories to support his claims for racial superioritySocial Darwinists interpreted survival of the fittest to mean that the strong are meant to rule the weak.

Rudyard Kipling saw expansion of empire as moral responsibility and referred to this duty as "the white man's burden" Yep, the Jungle Book guy

Imperialism

British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli Disraelis novel Sybil, in which he described the rich and poor as:

two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are ignorant of each others habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by different breeding, are fed by different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws. (2)

Two Nations Theory

H.G. Wells The Time Machine as an imperialistic narrative H.G. Wells The Time Machine uses ideas such as Disraeli's Two Nations: the imperial frontier the idea of time travel Based on the imperialistic narratives of the mid-1880's.

The Two Nations theory came about when Disraeli looked at the difference between the rich and the poor in Victorian England

8Two Tribes Motif:The Eloi and the MorlocksH.G. Wells novels, the Two Nations theory is portrayed through two tribesthe Eloi and the Morlocks

The Eloi are peaceful, docile, and friendly

Morlocks are primitive (ape-like), evil, and cannibalistic representing the good vs. evil

9Eloi as South Sea IslandersNot all Tribes are created equal

South Sea Islanders were the favored natives due to passivity of colonization

They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful manner fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping (Wells qtd. In Empire of the Future)

10Morlocks- the Ape-Like Cannibals The Morlocks are portrayed as the evil tribe that needs to be conquered by man because it cannot be trusted

The evil tribe was commonly attributed as being cannibalistic, such as the Morlocks

11

The Fourth DimensionIn The Time Machine, Wells uses the ideas of Einstein and Minkowski to show there is a fourth dimension- Time

Time is only a kind of space (qtd. In Empire of the Future)12Traveling Into the FutureWells decides to travel into the future, showing the imperial frontier of the future

13It's Time to Tropicalize In The Time Machine, Wells is bringing the Imperial Frontier to Britain

In order to do this, Wells gives the future a tropical climate believing that the Golden Age life would come about due to the warm, tropical climate

14 The Oriental British NationThe many orientalizing touches in The Time Machine combine to portray a Britain that has in effect gone native, that has succumbed to the seductive forces it hoped to subdue on the imperial frontier (Cantor and Hufnagel 236)15British Reign- Everlasting?In the end of The Time Machine, Wells portrays the setting sun, showing that one day, the sun would finally set on the British Empire

16Time Machine:acts as an attack on Victorian social scene shortcomings denounce evils of Victorian industrycriticize laissez-faire economics - Capitalism UltimatelyIn Conclusion Wells brings about the imperial frontier using the imperialistic narrative style that was quite popular in that time period.

18Utilitarianism: it is a theory based on the idea that the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by whether its consequences are conductive to general utility. The main thinker was Jeremy Bentham (Wrote about social happiness. He believed that individuals acted by self-interest). The utilitarians applied this idea for all the institutions, for everything.Opposed to the utilitarianism: Thomas Carlyle, he thought that intellect had limitations and couldn't explain everything and he turned to the humanism soul, a sort of religious belief was necessary to explain things.