Essay About H.G. Wells Teacher And H. G. Wells

H.G Wells
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Influence
Thomas Huxley, a famous biologist and H.G. Wells teacher, once said
that “We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the
plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he
can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than
it was before he entered it” (Zaadz). In other words, we all have the
duty to leave the world a better place by leaving our influence on
others. At some point of our lives, weve all had someone or something
close to us that has left their influence on us and H. G. Wells is no
different. His novella, The Time Machine, was inspired by the various
different traits of Wells family and social life. The book in turn
influenced many others in the world. The society and his surroundings greatly
influenced H.G. Wells in The Time Machine, which in turn influenced
other human beings.
The Time Machine, although a science fiction, had many prospects that
were real, that were existent in the life of H.G. Wells. H.G. Wells
had many events and people around him whose influences were seen in The
Time Machine. The first thing that a person gets inspired by is their
loved ones, and so did H.G. Wells. His family background, referring to
his mother and father, and his own upbringing is seen clearly in the
main characters of the book.
H. G. Wells was born in a lower-middle class family and a class-ridden
society in 1966. During that time, the first thing that would be
settled between a newly employed maid servant and her mistress is what
names is the servant liable to answer to. The employed servant couldnt
answer unless the name was appropriate for the position she was hired
for; for example, a menial had to answer to menial names. Anthony West
explains that his “father always had a tin ear in this region, and his
more refined admirers often complained of the tiny flaw that allowed him
to give his females such awful names — poor Weena of The Time Machine
being a favored case point” (West, 370).
Weena is the only character in the entire novella that has a name; all
the other characters are either known by their first initial or their
occupation. There hasnt been a specific reason in the past records as
to why Weena is the only character named in the book. But by looking
at Wells life and his beliefs, we can guess the reason behind this
mystery. H.G. Wells was a true Socialist, a committed humanitarian, and a
supporter of womens rights. A supporter of womens rights at that
time would be laughed and ridiculed. But H.G. Wells, a devoted
humanitarian, wanted to help out and change the society (Keller). This could be
a possible explanation as to why Weena, a only woman character in the
book, was given a name and not the other men in the novella.
H.G. Wells says in the book that the Morlocks were “subterranean for
innumerable generations, had come at last to find the daylit surface
intolerable” (Wells, 51). The cavernous Morlocks natural habitat had
degenerated from ages. They lived underground because they couldnt bear
the daylight and also had to stay below ground to keep the machines
working for their cattle, the Elois. Now, a normal person would think
this characterization as a work of imagination. But H.G. Wells had a
reason for the Morlocks to be how they were portrayed in the book. He had
a story behind the mysterious Morlocks that was related to his parents.
Wells parents had always been in constant arguments. Wells mother
had left her husband and his son to be a housekeeper in the castle
located in Uppark. His mother used to complaint about his fathers lack of
consideration for her which “condemned her to spend the greater part of
her day every day below ground level in the basement kitchen of Atlas
House, a room that borrowed its light from a pit covered by a metal
grating set into the pavement of Bromleys High Street” (West, 226).
It is evident that Wells had gotten the idea of Morlocks from the
behaviors of her mother and father. Anthony West, H.G. Wells illegitimate
son, clarifies this influence on his father in his book Aspects of a
Life: “His (Wells) bottled-up feelings on this score, mingled with
others, even more powerful, concerning the fundamentals of relationship
between his parents, had finally burst out into the open in his
descriptions of the loathly caverns inhabited