Contents Page
Introduction……….. 3
Chapter 1: The Island of Doctor Moreau………. 16
Chapter 2: The War of the Worlds………... 29
Chapter 3: The Time Machine………. 39
Conclusion……….... 52
Introduction
Throughout history, mankind has continued to act on their belief that they are a superior species that must master and control the natural world. From the beginning of human existence, our species made tools to hunt and manipulate nature into becoming shelters for protection. While this dominance of nature was largely founded on the species’ need for survival, as society has progressed mankind is no longer faced with the dangers of living in the wilderness, but this compulsion to control nature has remained. Simon Estok describes this fear of and need to control natures as “an adaptive strategy that is now perhaps as useful for our survival as other long obsolete adaptations: the appendix, the tailbone, wisdom teeth, and so on” (“Tracking Ecophobia” 31). Further to the opposing of nature being an obsolete thought process, it has led to the destructive habits that have largely contributed to today’s ecological crisis. The Anthropocene – the period in which mankind became a global force of environmental destruction – began with the invention of steam engine, where mankind exploited the land and increased their dominance over it through science and technology. This invention lead to the industrial revolution where mankind continued to separate itself from the natural world and celebrate their ability to manipulate nature for their own advancement.
Alongside a history of controlling the natural world is a literary cannon that largely provides hegemonic reinforcement of mankind’s superiority and mastery of nature. Ancient religious scholars in Britain argued that the earth was created for the human species, because “the biblical imperative about human relations with nature gives man (a man, actually: Adam) divine authority to control everything that lives” (Estok, Ecocriticism and Shakespeare: Reading
Ecophobia 5). Many of the most famous plays and novels written since have featured human
where writers are “first imagining agency and intent in nature and then quashing that imagined agency and intent” (6). However, the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the
Species (1865) offered a new perspective of the natural world. The theory of natural selection
de-centered mankind by demonstrating that human history was only a fraction of natural history, as well as highlighting that mankind had a strong connection to his surrounding ecosystem. While the publication was influential on Darwin’s Victorian contemporaries, readers interpreted the theory of natural selection in multiple ways that supported the anthropocentric attitudes that had been reinforced for centuries. Consequently, the Victorian literary cannon witnessed “a set of discourses struggling, and sometimes competing, to define nature and our relations to it” (Gold 216).
Amongst the Victorian writers who struggled to equate Darwin’s de-centering of mankind with their rigid anthropocentric perspective was H.G. Wells. Wells had a long and prolific career writing novels, articles, social commentary and textbooks that were inspired by both Darwinism and his own political opinions. This thesis will focus on his early novels The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and The War of the Worlds (1897), which were three commercial successes that launched his career and helped establish the genre of science fiction. Wells’ novels were praised for their originality by his contemporaries, because they reflected Victorian attitudes towards Darwinism and explored public anxieties relating to the future evolution of mankind. Prior to writing these novels, Wells had studied biology under the evolutionist Huxley, taken a further interest in social Darwinist arguments and developed his critique of society as a journalist. This combination placed him in a unique position for
constructing terrifying dystopias that predicted how the social issues of the Victorian era could lead to the extinction of mankind. Wells based all these novels on the belief that mankind had the
power to change the path of their future evolution. Like a great deal of fiction throughout the centuries, it made the assumption that humans have superior cognitive faculties that make them separate from and masters of the natural world. His adaption of Darwinism to form the basis of his stories about the fictional futures of mankind recognised this interconnectivity of mankind and nature. However, by using elements of social Darwinism to make arguments for social reform, he manipulated this potentially environmentalist message so that it served a more anthropocentric viewpoint, where nature’s position is dictated by mankind rather than the other way around.
This thesis will consider the early writings of Wells from the perspective of ecocriticism, in order to identify negative, Victorian attitudes towards the environment that have contributed to today’s ecological crisis. Ecocriticism is a strand of literary criticism that can be summarised as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (Goltfelty xviii). Mirroring environmentalists, ecocritics primarily believe that the current ecological crisis needs to be addressed through increased awareness about mankind’s treatment of the natural world. The many literary critics who have contributed to this field of criticism have mapped a history of destructive habits of thought regarding the environment that have resulted in nature’s
exploitation. These thought processes have been founded on the continued belief that “people were meant to exercise dominion over nature, or that nature is a passive receptacle of the fertilizing human mind, or that limitless growth is the essence of human social destiny” (Newman 2). The Island of Doctor Moreau, The War of the World and The Time Machine all reflect these destructive habits of thought, by reinforcing an anthropocentric perspective that mankind is the center of the universe and must control nature. By suggesting mankind’s
from nature and lose any sense of responsibility regarding the damage they were inflicting upon it.
Through the lens of ecocriticism, this thesis will assert that Wells manipulated the writings of Darwin to support his anthropocentric notion of a quasi-socialist utopia where mankind was separate from and dominant over nature. Further, it will argue that Wells’ dystopias negatively show a loss of the nature/culture and human/non-human divide, in order to frighten the reader into social reform. By showing worlds where mankind was no longer the most dominant life force on the earth or no longer separate from the animals, Wells could invoke the reader’s fear that mankind might not permanently have the dominant role that Victorians presumed was a birthright dictated by God. While this preached a message of interconnectivity with nature, it fuelled the notion that mankind was in opposition with nature and must defend their separation and mastery over it. Through both his anthropocentric message and his method of increasing fear of the environment to reinforce it, Wells’ contributed to what Glen A. Love describes in Practical Criticism (2003) as the residual fear of nineteenth-century abuses of evolutionary theory that have contributed to today’s negative treatment of the environment. Darwinism in the Victorian Era
Wells was a topical writer whose works reflected and responded to the public anxieties about Darwinism and the political conflict of the Victorian era. At the time that Wells wrote The
Island of Doctor Moreau, The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, there was heavy
criticism by public figures about the immorality and damaging effects of capitalism. The late nineteenth century had witnessed the negative repercussions of vast expansion and capitalist ambition, which had led to a problematic population increase, wealth disparities creating widening class divides and the aftermath of excessive urbanisation. Public outspokenness
criticising the effects of capitalism was fuelled by the writings of Karl Marx and other socialist campaigners, whose publications were made easily available through the creation of printing presses and other media platforms. On the Origin of the Species was also extremely influential during this time of political and cultural conflict, because the book allowed for numerous, vastly different interpretations that could be used to both support or challenge capitalism. The most notable interpretation of mankind’s place in evolution for arguments within politics were the arguments made by social Darwinists. Social Darwinism allowed for the “justification of rampant capitalism, ruthless competition and unregulated economic individualism; a harsh doctrine praising survivors and victors and damning the unfit” (Crook, Darwinism: The Political
Implications 19). The theory tailored Darwin’s arguments to fit popular meditations of high and
mass culture, such as arguments about degeneration that had fuelled prison reforms, the Contagious Diseases Act and imperial aggression. It not only justified the dominance of the upper classes within society, but it often dismissed the labouring classes as “a mass of degenerates – being most exposed to unhygienic conditions over long generations” (28). Socialists tried to expose these arguments as falsehood, by exposing “self-made men who were not necessarily the best eugenic types, nor even (according to Galton’s own theory of regression to the average) certain to produce equally talented offspring” (23). In both instances, Darwinism was manipulated to support a vast array of conflicting political ideologies.
While the political landscape in the late nineteenth century held contradictions, there was a strong cultural focus on the importance of self-development, moral earnestness and hard work, which was heavily threatened by the perceived degradation and social decline. The turn of the century – a period coined the ‘fin de siècle’ – was marked by ennui, political pessimism, aestheticism and decadence that were making the upper classes less isolated and dominant in
society. Mirroring the use of Darwinism in politics, there was public anxiety that if society was regressing then mankind could regress back into the animals they had evolved from. The lower classes were considered by many as only slightly more evolved than animals, and in some cases the upper classes – having seen the violence of political revolts in Britain and neighbouring countries – questioned their ability to stay dominant over the ‘savage’ classes. Considerations of the evolutionary impact of this social decline “spawned a sense of impotence and a frenzy of activity” (Graff 35). There was a great deal of pessimism about the future of the species if degradation and social decline continued; Michel Serres describes how On the Origin of the
Species was frequently interpreted as a "myth of death, [which expresses a] greater likelihood of
extinction than progress" (qtd. in Beer 9). There was a rise in social anxiety about whether society’s perceived regression would lead to humans taking a more animal form in the future. Texts like Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s Zoological Philosophy (1809) or Robert Chambers’s Vestiges
of the Natural History of Creation (1844) demonstrated how these arguments affected mankind’s
perception of the natural world and the human/animal boundary that had previously remained unchallenged. As Samantha Haas discusses: “The extension and consolidation of empire,
industrialization, the emergence of animal welfare organizations, the anti-vivisection movement, and the rise of veterinary medicine all involved significant changes in human interactions with, and perceptions of, animals” (Mckechnie 439). It was these political uncertainties surround social Darwinism, social decline, socialism and the human/animal divide that were inspirations for the early works of Wells.
H.G. Wells and Darwinism
The famous biologist Huxley taught Wells at university and continued to have a strong influence of his writings throughout Wells’ career. Huxley believed that if humanity was to
prevent extinction, people would need to use scientific objectivity to govern mankind, in order to ensure they didn’t revert to purely instinctual and selfish impulses. His writings promoted the ability of mankind to intervene with the process of evolution through the “artificial” means of a carefully governed society, which was a doctrine Wells adopted from the start of his career. While Wells agreed that the social decline and degradation of the period was endangering the future evolution of mankind, he came from a humble background and stood against capitalism’s use of Darwinism to justify the oppression of the lower classes. Wells believed that poorer classes were as inherently intelligent and adapted for survival as the higher classes, but felt their perceived lower status was due to a lack of education. Wells’ writings reflect his opinion that mankind’s survival was dependent upon cooperation and scientific objectivity, arguing that society must adopt these principles to ensure that the mankind was taking steps to control how the species evolved, rather than relying on natural selection.
Wells’ writings were deeply representative of many of the Victorian attitudes towards the relationship between evolution and society. He benefitted from the literary trend that used Darwin’s theory of evolution to contribute to the blurring of the gap between science and fantasy. Equally, he drew from the abundant satire of the period through his prediction of the future of mankind, which exaggerated the potential effects of society’s decline, where in fantastical worlds there had been irreversible damage to the survival of mankind because of continued degradation. He was also part of a genre of dystopian tales that “not only provided a dynamic vehicle for fictionalizing concerns about an increasingly urbanized humanity, they also examined the social implications of evolution itself” (Brake and Hook 280). Wells was utopian in his ideals of a society that functioned towards becoming an increasingly advanced species through a
state” (Jonsson 295). Instead of a society based on the individual needs of those in Victorian society, he encouraged the population to fit itself to an imaginary ideal, which was best explored through fiction of this genre. This ideal was one where mankind cooperated to control the
evolution of the species, under the flawed guidance of what was deemed ‘scientific objectivism’, which incorporated many aspects of social Darwinist arguments. The political hegemony that Wells reinforced through his adoption of social Darwinists arguments have frequently repelled scholars within the humanities, as these ideologies have since allowed for the persecution of minority groups under the guise of scientific objectivity. For example, Joseph Carrol dismisses social Darwinism as a value-laden misinterpretation of evolutionary theory in Literary
Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature and Literature (2004), which acted in the detriment of
both minority groups and the environment. Wells’ particular misinterpretation of evolutionary theory was due to his preexisting anthropocentricism; mirroring how political figures throughout history have justified slavery or incarceration of the mentally ill through Darwinism because of their preexisting, bigoted misunderstanding of these minorities.
Wells and Ecocriticism
This thesis will use the principles of ecocriticism to demonstrate how Wells’ manipulation of Darwinism supports his anthropocentric perspective that mankind is separate from and master of the natural world. Ecocriticism “takes an earth-centered approach to literary studies”
(Glotfelty xviii), thereby allowing critics to expose the negative, anthropocentric perspectives of the environment that literature has historically reinforced. The literary approach emerged in the 1980s when critics began to celebrate the environment through nature writing. However, this study will adhere to the more recent, second-wave of ecocriticism that (according to literary critic Greg Garrad) uses cultural artifacts to consider how the interconnections between nature
and culture are frequently portrayed. Literary texts show a history of portraits of the environment that are founded on basic assumptions and attitudes that the author held about mankind and nature. In some cases, the way the environment is described intentionally addresses cultural preconceptions about the environment, in order to challenge or reinforce them through an environmentalist message. However, in most instances – including the works of Wells – the author’s prejudices towards nature are merely the repetition of hegemonic beliefs of the period and the connotations of their writings are meaningful but accidental. This thesis will build on critics who have shown how famous works throughout history have been “anthropocentric and dualist, implying that we humans are the center, surrounded by everything that is not us, the environment” (Glotfelty xx). It will assert that Wells roots himself in Darwinism, but reinforces the human/non-human and nature/culture dualisms rather than de-center mankind within the larger framework of natural history.
Wells’ novels make the assumption that mankind’s social decline and unjust treatment of the working classes could lead to the regression into a primitive species, which would eventually break down society and leave only the ‘anarchy’ of the natural world. Wells’ recognition of the interconnectivity of mankind and nature mirrors arguments by eco-marxists like Raymond Williams, who discusses that “the conquest of nature, the domination of nature, the exploitation of nature” is “derived from the real human practices and relations between men and men” (Problems in Materialism and Culture 84). Wells recognized within his premises that the way society is governed changes mankind’s relationship with its surroundings and “the economy as “embedded” in the social and natural environment” (Lowy 122). However, Wells dismissed the effects of capitalism on the environment and focused purely on the effects on the labourer. This heavily conflicts with ecocriticism and environmentalism today, which aims to:
Foster a new sort of ethical consciousness at the core of which is the conviction that people should treat all things in nature as equals, as beings with ethical standing. If such a consciousness can be reproduced widely enough, it is argued, there will follow a
paradigm shift that will go far toward reversing a continuing history of destruction (Newman 20).
It is Wells’ anthropocentric prioritising of mankind over nature that has contributed to what Goltfelty describes as the “limited humanistic vision has led to a narrowing anthropocentric view of what is consequential in life” (Goltfelty xxix) that continues to spread apathy towards
exploitation of nature today.
In addition to Wells’ anthropocentric privileging of mankind’s interest over nature, his method of collapsing the dualisms between human/non-human and nature/culture to frighten the reader into social reform actually increases unjustified phobias of the environment. While the status quo during the late nineteenth century was that mankind was the “splendidly endowed end-produce of evolution…. a creature of civilisation and culture” (Crook, Darwin’s Coat-tails 10), conflicting arguments had emerged to suggest humans were nothing more than “a barely domesticated brute” (10). At a time of such great uncertainty about mankind’s birthright on Earth, Wells’ threat of humanity’s loss of dominance and progression towards extinction exaggerated the existing social anxiety of the reader. The depiction of nature within Wells’ writings, as an object to be feared, is the manifestation of the author’s “ecophobia” – a term coined in 1995 by theorist Estok. Ecophobia is the “irrational and groundless hatred of the natural world, as present and subtle in our daily lives and literature as homophobia and racism and sexism” (qtd. in Gerrard 47). Critics like Edward Wilson have argued that the ungrounded, negative connotations mankind holds about the natural world have largely fuelled the current
ecological crisis. Estok writes that “the rapid disappearance of species of which Wilson speaks so eloquently and persuasively has many causes, but among these ecophobia is dominant (Estok,
Narrativizing Science 146). The controversial term has emerged from ecocritical literary theory
and opened up “opportunities to study nature in ways similar to the ways terms such as misogyny, racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism open up studies of the representations of women, race, sexuality, and Jewishness respectively” (Estok, Ecocriticism and Shakespeare:
Reading Ecophobia 2).
Further to Wells depicting nature as a threat to society, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The
War of the Worlds and The Time Machine also reinforce the myth that mankind must be in
control of nature. Harold Fromm writes in “From Transcendence to Obsolescence” that
ecophobia comes from the recognition that we cannot control nature, but have created a history of storytelling that allows mankind to falsely believe it is in their power. He argues: “In lieu of the ability to mold Nature to serve his own ends, man had chosen to extol and mythify that side of his being that seemed to transcend Nature by inhabiting universes of thought that Nature could not naysay” (Fromm 30). Wells exemplifies this myth that the environment should be controlled, by portraying dystopias where humans no longer control nature and this has led to nightmarish consequences. Wells encourages the reader to act on these anxieties by separating themselves from the dangers of nature by addressing social decline; thereby taking control over their own future evolution and defending their dominance over nature. Ultimately, this message reflected and reinforced the unfounded Victorian belief that nature is “the hateful object in need of our control, the loathed and feared thing that can only result in tragedy if left in control” (Estok,
This thesis will demonstrate that the vicious imagery associated with Wells’ dystopias is intended to encourage the education of the poor and provide criticism of the decadent lifestyles of his wealthy, Victorian contemporaries. However, his suggestion that mankind can lose their separation from nature in the future reinforces that these dualisms exists in the present day. Therefore, Wells reinforced what philosopher Val Plumword calls “the hyperseparated binaries that assert that humans are separate from the rest of the living world” (qtd. in Solvic 6), which is the fundamental misapprehension that has historically justified the exploitation of nature. Further to demonstrating Wells’ assumption of mankind’s separation from nature, this thesis will show how these dystopia encourage the reader to fear the environment. It will argue that these anxieties related to the environment were irrational during the Victorian period, but cultural artifacts like literature prolonged the mythology that nature was in opposition with culture. Carroll argues: “Throughout most of our evolutionary history, an alert attentiveness to the natural world would have been crucial to our survival, and the latent emotional responsiveness that attends this adaptive function has not disappeared with the advent of controlled climates and supermarket foods” (qtd. in Estok, Tracking Ecophobia 32). In studying Wells’ reinforcement of the falsified threat of nature to society, this thesis will considered how this canonised author has aided to the progression of ecophobic attitudes.
Through comparison of The Island of Doctor Moreau, The War of the Worlds and The
Time Machine, the thesis will show Wells’ prediction of the same dystopia for mankind in each
novel: that degradation of the working classes will lead to their regression into a primitive, non-human species that will revolt against the more civilized upper classes. In “Chapter 1: The Island
of Doctor Moreau”, the working are represented through the Beast Folk who eventually revolt
Worlds” the Martians represent the future of labouring classes who become deformed due to their
excessive proximity with technology. This affiliation with machinery results in a loss of altruism and consequently the Martian use this technology to destroy humanity. Finally, “Chapter 3: The
Time Machine” very explicitly identifies this loss of a human/animal divide using the working
classes’ evolution into the Morlocks. Having lived underground with the technology they have previously used to serve the upper classes, the working class have become monstrous cannibals. Their cruelty and lack of morality allow them to become masters of this new world, where the remaining humans have been turned into cattle. By demonstrated the continued repetition of the ungrounded, terrifying predictions for human evolution should society fail to address social decline, the thesis will show how Wells reinforces the need to defend its positions as masters of the natural world. It is Wells’ use of anthropocentric manipulations of Darwinism, repetition of extreme dualisms and excessive use of ecophobia that perpetuate the negative attitudes towards the environment. Through analysis of these themes, the thesis will determine how Wells
encouraged destructive thought processes amongst his contemporaries and the continued effects this has left on today’s readers.
Chapter 1: The Island of Doctor Moreau
H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau is a satirical fable that shows a fictional world where degradation has led to a loss of the dualisms that separate mankind from nature. It draws on Victorian phobias that a loss of the human/animal and nature/culture divides would lead to the breakdown of society and the regression of mankind into untamed animals. The post-Darwinist era was marked by public anxieties that the divinely orchestrated divides between human/non-human and culture/nature could be lost if mankind didn’t take control of their future evolution. This unsettling notion that a society in moral decline might lead to the loss of humanity was strongly fuelled by popular arguments of social Darwinists, eugenics scholars and the literary trend of authors focusing on the social implications of evolution. In the case of the latter, the period tended to bring negative connotations to the perception of nature by exploring the
hypothetic collapse of these dualisms through hybrid creatures in gothic fiction. Characters such as the ape-like Mr. Hyde in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) or the werewolf in Alexandre Dumas’ The Wolf Leader (1857) associated mankind’s fusing with nature as a horrifying loss of morality and increased violence. In doing this, the literary trend projected the ecophobic belief that mankind’s lack of separation from and dominance over the environment would put the human species in danger.
The Island of Doctor Moreau continued this trend by using the terrifying threat of
animalised man to stimulate an emotional response to raise awareness of social issues that might lead to society’s descent into chaos. By describing this loss of the human/animal divide within the novel, Wells makes the assumption that this dualistic divide exists in the first place and that the loss of a divide from nature would have negative consequences. This chapter explores how
drawing disturbing comparisons between the degradation of Victorian society and the violence of the natural world. It will assert that by suggesting moral decline could lead to a loss of mankind’s separation from nature and that this would result in a nightmarish dystopia, Wells is reinforcing ecophobic hatred of the environment and the need for mankind to control nature.
The narrator of The Island of Doctor Moreau is the archetype of a wealthy, well-educated Victorian gentleman, who reinforces the status quo that man is separate to nature. Pendrick has exceedingly humane qualities that distance him from the savages of the island, breaking with Wells' signature style of casting narrators that are under-developed and often unnamed. Pendrick proves his humanity within the first chapter by avoiding a fight to the death that leaves him the sole survivor of the Lady Vain. He has also studied biology under Huxley, which is associated with the dominance of nature because of its use of the manipulation of animals or vegetation during experiments. This is noted by Francis Bacon in New Atlantis – a novel that strongly influenced Victorian attitudes toward the treatment of animals and vivisection – which states that science demonstrates a “power over nature and with man’s proper place as separate from animals and close to God” (qtd. in Vint 86). This attitude is echoed when Pendrick relates this memory of doing experiments by removing “the ovary of the earthworm and the radula of the snail and all that” (Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau 7). Pendrick is a relatable character who the reader relies on to tell the story accurately, and therefore his anthropocentric beliefs are likely to influence the reader’s interpretation of the tale.
Despite Pendrick’s belief that man is the master of nature, he is witness to the collapse of the boundaries that justify such a separation when he encounters the Beast Folk. While he eventually accepts this collapse, his reluctance to believe it leads him to discover the origin of the Beast Folk much later than the reader. Pendrick is self-aware that he is narrating a story that
seems impossible and therefore appeals directly to reader by describing it as a “horrible, and far stranger” (1) version of the report he has previously given about the shipwreck. This appeal helps the reader to indulge its implausibility, but his self-awareness provides hegemonic reinforcement that it is ‘normal’ for Victorians to believe these dualisms exist in real life. Consequently, the narrator asks the reader to break with reality and dismisses the loss of dualisms within the novel as fantastical, which is emphasized further by Wells’ inclusion of a Satyr among Dr. Moreau’s creations in homage to classical mythology
Wells’ comparison between the Beast Folk and the working class allow the reader to see how a similar collapse in the division between man and animal could occur with further social decline of the poor. In the late Victorian era it was common for wealthier classes to refer to the working class as ‘savage’; therefore, the association between the poor and animals in the
wilderness had already been naturalised. The reader is encouraged to make this connection even prior to the appearance of the Beast Folk, through the vulgar sailors who have been living in squalor away from civilised society. While recovering consciousness after being rescued from the shipwreck, Pendrick is continually distracted by the barking of dogs and the activity of the sailors, which he hears simultaneously in the background. He is then shocked that the boat is “anything but clean” (9), due to the crew refusing to clean up after the animals onboard. The association of the poor hygiene of animals and the working class sailors is poignant for the Victorian reader, as acts of charity often included “scrubbing, aimed to confer dignity by returning the poor creature’s human appearance” (Ottis 487). Further to the setting and background noise, a more direct comparison is made when Pendrick meets the crew, who are racist towards Black-Face and led by an abusive, alcoholic captain. The captain is particularly violent towards Pendrick, threatening to “cut out his blasted insides” (Wells, The Island of
Doctor Moreau 15) and deciding to throw him overboard once they get to the island. The
justification the captain gives for his behavior is “I’m the law here” (15). The crew are
ungoverned by a structured society, implying that any humanity he might express on land was from fear of punishment rather than a commitment to the ethical standards that distinguishes mankind from animals. This same argument between the association of the sailors and the Beast Folk is made by literary critic Taneja, who states that “just as the lower class members of London were given homogenized and animalized nineteenth century discourses drawing on evolutionary language, so too the British sailors of Moreau are treated as a monolithic group and identified closely with the grisly stage hounds” (Taneja 150). While the aforementioned similarity does not completely collapse the human/non-human dualisms, it uses a realistic setting to demonstrate how close the working class are to becoming human/non-human hybrids.
On the island, Wells continues to insinuate that the Beast Folk represent the future decline of the working class by placing them in submissive, service roles and showing their slow descent into criminality. The Beast Folk take on the roles of cooks, guards and butlers for the biologists working on the island, and are denied the middle class pleasures of brandy, meat, material assets and intellectual pursuits. The suggestion that their lack of wealth or status might correlate with their continual breaking of the law is made by Montgomery after one of his rabbits is eaten by the Beast Folk. He states that: “I showed him how to skin and cook a rabbit” (Wells, The Island
of Doctor Moreau 113), consciously suggesting the feasting was learned behavior, but
unconsciously also linking the cook’s crime to its service role. As they are working class, the Beast Folk are denied the luxury of meat and the desire to obtain it has overridden their desire to uphold the law. When capital punishment is used as justice for the murdering of the rabbit, Pendrick highlights the Beast's similarity to humans: “seeing the creature there in a perfectly
animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes, and it’s imperfectly human face distorted with terror, I realized the fact of its humanity” (122). By reminding the reader of the Beast’s humanity, Pendrick draws attention to the circumstances surrounding the crime and its similarity to savage labourers. This crime represented “long-standing anxiety about the effect of extreme poverty upon the religious and moral habits of the working class” (Collini 31). Like the poor,
Montgomery describes the moral decline of the Beast Folk, saying that they experience “cravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity, a strange reservoir to burst suddenly and inundate the whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear” (Wells, The Island of Doctor
Moreau 99). These moments of primitive behavior are very similar to those of the sailors, who
also threatened violence when angered. This comparison associates the two species through unethical behavior, but the crimes are only committed by the Beast Folk. The Beast Folk’s lower moral integrity acts as a warning about what these sailors might become if they continue to act on the primitive, ‘savage’ drives that are associated with nature rather than humanity.
The correlation between the Beast Folk and crime is partially explained by their lack of education, which is a circumstance the poor were also affected by in Victorian society. Where social Darwinists believed that the poor were “natural inferiors to their white masters who were elevated to the top of the evolutionary ladder” (Taneja 148), Wells argued that they were as inherently intelligent as the higher classes, but were denied the education that would allow them to reach their full potential. The novel demonstrates how the middle and upper classes withhold education to maintain their superiority, as well as showing how this ultimately leads to the moral decline of the working class. Initially, all three biologists have a false sense of security that the poor education of the Beast Folk will keep them submissive. They teach the Beast Folk simple English skills and counting that allow them to fulfill service roles but nothing more intellectually
fulfilling. Montgomery states this when he explains that “in spite of their increased intelligence… they had certain Fixed Ideas implanted by Moreau in their minds, which
absolutely bounded their imaginations” (Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau 103). Further, an explanation of the Beast Folk’s originis delivered to Pendrick in “Schoolboy Latin” (84), which Pendrick alone can understand because of his elite, middle class education. While this limited education keeps the Beast Folk submissive, it also limits their understanding of why the law exists and therefore reduces their commitment to uphold it. The Beast Folk have learnt the laws of the island through a chant that they have rhythmically memorised through the repetition of “that is the Law. Are we not men?” (76) rather than having fully grasped the reasoning behind these lessons. They are not fully aware of their origins so they cannot appreciate the rules are to stop their decent into a fully animal form. This mirrors Wells’ perception of the working class, who were equally becoming animalised because their lack of education led to a limited
understanding of the importance of morality.
The consequences of this poor education are further shown when the Beast People are no longer governed by the middle class biologists and their education is forgotten at a similar rate to the increase in violence. Victorians believed that education “will slip away unless integrated into a receptive structure” (Ottis 500) and this structure is lost without the higher cultural values of the human biologists. Initially, the Dog Man is at his most articulate and seems determined to uphold the law, saying “We love the law, and will keep it; but there is no pain, no Master, no Whips for ever again” (Wells, Island of Doctor Moreau 156). Pendrick feels safe in the first few weeks, until he notices the Beast Folk “slipping their hold upon speech” (162) signifying that they are becoming more animal-like and that the violence of the natural world will shortly emerge. This correlation is not merely the result of no longer fearing punishment, but also a loss
of understanding of what the laws are and therefore an inability to feel ashamed of committing crimes. When Moreau recalls the creation his first creature, he describes how it climbed up a tree to rebel against two bullying Kanakas; thereby breaking the laws Moreau had set to discourage the creature regressing back to its animalistic behaviours. His behaviour is corrected when Moreau reminds him of the law, explaining to “him the inhumanity of such a proceeding, aroused his sense of shame” (97). Once language is lost after the Beast Folk’s revolt, this sense of shame is no longer felt because the chant that taught them the law has been lost. When
Pendrick witnesses a Hyaena-Swine attacking the St. Bernard creature, he says “it was not afraid or ashamed; the last vestige of the human taint had vanished” (167). Therefore, Pendrick sees this shame that is learnt through education and knowledge as central to definitions of humanity. The horrifying image of Beast Folk being unable to use language and therefore losing their understanding of ethics could be conceived as the need to educate the working class. However, the notion of language being purely human is anthropocentric, because as David Abram
discusses in “The Discourse of the Birds”: “Birds have ceaselessly inspired us with their mellifluous and polyphonic utterances, undoubtedly instilling some of our earliest impulses towards song and spoken language” (273). In essence, by using language as the sole
communicator of morality within the novel, Wells encourages ecophobia by ignoring that other species communicate with one another and the altruism that inherently exists within the animal kingdom.
The decline of the working class into a human/animal hybrid has horrific connotations because the degradation has made the upper classes weak at defending their dominance; therefore, the wealthy and educated cannot uphold the laws that would prevent regression and anarchy. Montgomery had joined the island after abusing his education in favour of indulging in
pleasure, having been “clearly a very average student who preferred to spend his time in the music halls” (Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau 8). He brings this decadent lifestyle to the island, by continually drinking brandy and being too “sympathetic towards” (126) the Beast Folk, which in turn reduces his superiority over them. These vices are highly relevant to Victorian culture as they reflect existing fears that public houses led to an unwanted
intermingling of the classes. Equally, sympathy was considered to be a loss of self-control and the rise of sensation novels that created sympathy for the poor were criticised for potentially spreading the primal values of the working class to higher class readers. Montgomery
increasingly indulges in his vices leading to his drunken behaviour after the death of Moreau, where his violent mood has a brutality that mirrors both the drunk captain at the start of the novel and the Beast Folk in general. Pendrick confirms his animalisation has occurred from these vices, saying “You’ve made a beast of yourself. To the beasts you may go” (140). Therefore, while his education and status make him aware of the law and morality, his over-indulgence of pleasure has led to a similar collapse in the human/non-human and nature/culture dualisms.
The Island of Doctor Moreau has been described as “decadent Englishmen struggling to
maintain their masculinity and imperial authority” (Taneja 140). Where Pendrick and Moreau are abstainers who pursued knowledge and kept their control over the Beast Folk until the revolt, Montgomery declines into an inferior authority figure. When he fails to take charge after
Moreau’s death, Pendrick concludes that “He had been strangely under the influence of Moreau’s personality” (Wells, The Island of the Doctor Moreau 138) and therefore was subordinate to him. The demotion in status increases in the chapter “Montgomery’s Bank Holiday”, where he
becomes intoxicated rather than attempting to intercept the revolt. When Pendrick rejects his desire for social interaction by refusing to drink with him, he is reduced to socialising with the
Beast Folk, where he offers them alcohol and drunkenly engages them in song. Realizing that Beast People are closer to his equals than Pendrick, he burns the life rafts to prevent his return to a more sophisticated, human society. Previously, Pendrick had described the idea of himself falling to the level of the Beast Folk as “the most hideous degradation it was possible conceive – to send me off, a lost soul, a beast, to the rest of their Comus rout” (62). This “hideous
degradation” that Pendrick fears happens through Montgomery’s inability to uphold his authority during the Beast Folk’s revolt. Montgomery’s moral decline means he is no longer separate from nature and therefore is no longer master of it, which results in humiliation and death.
Consequently, the loss of dualisms is associated with a fear of nature and enhances the existing ecophobia of the reader.
The collapse of the dualisms during the revolt of the Beast Folk is portrayed as having horrific consequences that must be avoided. The message of this revolt is that the rise of working class individuals who adhere to no higher moral understanding will lead to a loss of liberty for the masses, targeted towards an audience that had witnessed the vicious revolutions in Britain and neighbouring countries throughout Europe. Wells was a strong supporter of John Stuart Mills, who wrote that “the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or
collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant” (Mills 21). Wells argument that the Beast Folk’s behaviour is immoral is based on their choice to pursue their instinctive desires over the greater good of society, which (in turn) will lead to a loss of liberty for the surviving humans. In criticising the Beast Folk for their damage to the society that Doctor Moreau created on the island, Wells is making the anthropocentric assumption that human society should be prioritised over the animal kingdom that the Beast Folk belong to. The narrative focuses on the
loss of liberty for the wealthy, well-educated humans rather considering the damage Doctor Moreau has created on the island and applauding the Beast Folk to recovering the land and culture that rightly belongs to them. This assumption is an extension of speciesism, as it suggests the Beast Folk have no rights because Wells portrays them as lacking (or having very little) sentience. Speciesism is “a prejudice or attitude of bias towards the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species” (Singer 15). Though the island is fictional, the failure of the novel to validate the environment and animals for overthrowing their postcolonial invaders is consequential to Victorian attitudes in the nineteenth century, as
colonisers where drastic reshaping the new landscapes that they entered. As William Beinart and Lotte Hughes summarise, during this era: “British consumers and manufacturers sucked in resources that were gathered, hunted, fished, mined and farmed in a great profusion of extractive and agrarian systems” (vii). Wells mirrors this destructive behavior by suggesting that the natural world have no rights, because liberty is only applicable to human society rather than the nature.
However, the use of the Beast Folk to demonstrate this loss of liberty draws upon horrific images that foreground ecophobic beliefs that nature will destroy humanity if it is not controlled and dominated. This is shown through Pendrick’s decline who, despite maintaining his humanity, he eventually becomes more primitive through this affiliation with Montgomery and his
proximity to the anarchy of the Beast Folk. In the case of the former, Montgomery’s weakness has undermined his authority as a middle class gentleman and brought him to a similar social status as the Beast Folk. This is shown when the Dog Man states: “The Master is dead; the Other with the Whip is dead. That Other who walked in the sea is-as we are” (Wells, The Island of
Doctor Moreau 156). Where Moreau was a god-like figure with prestige, Montgomery reduced
with him. The distinction between ‘Master’ and the ‘Other’ debases Pendrick and Montgomery, who become figures that no longer belong in the new environment that the Beast Folk are dictating; the Beast Folk are now at the center and the humans are the ‘Other’. This low status is in itself associated with savagery because “certain behaviors are classified differently – as civilized or as savage – based solely on the status of the one performing them” (Vint 94). The animalised masses have created a new world where Pendrick occupies a debased role. The consequence of this loss of status is that Pendrick cannot reinforce this humanity because he no longer belongs to a society that allows him to uphold the customs and traditions that he
associates with respectable living. An example of this is his animal appearance because he cannot uphold his hygiene and attire in the new environment: “My clothes hung about me as yellow rags, through whose rents glowed the tanned skin” (Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau 164). This poor cleanliness is not only viewed as primitive, but is also a sign of low status because it draws an image of Victorian labourers who could not afford new clothing and were tanned because they were continually working in the sun. Pendrick also fears “I may have caught something of the natural wilderness of my companions” (172), because he has not been able to exercise his language or etiquette with the Beast Folk.
When he is rescued, he “does not classify himself apart from the rest of humanity, but rather sees himself as an animal as well” (Vint 94). The impact of Pendrick’s decline into a more animalised state, regardless of his strong educational and moral grounding, highlights to the Victorian reader that the degradation of individuals will lead to the animalisation of society as a whole. Pendrick is evolving to an animal state because of his embeddedness within the
wilderness rather than society. The final image of the island is when Pendrick cowers over dead sailors and sees Wolf Beasts approaching: “When I saw them approaching those wretched
remains, heard them snarling at one another, and caught the gleam of their teeth, a frantic horror succeeded my repulsion” (Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau 170). Unable to live in harmony with this wild island after seeing this scene, Pendrick escapes on a raft; literally and
metaphorically distancing himself from the primacy of the island. Estok identifies that reading ecophobia means “to see the values that are written into and the work through the representations of nature we imagine, theorize and produce” (“Reading Ecophobia” 76). This final scene on the island is the crisis point where the narrator escapes and the final impression left on the reader is that if nature is left untamed it will lead to anarchy and violence that will ultimately destroy humanity. By the late nineteenth century, the rise of industrialism and technological
advancements meant that “no longer does Nature seem quite so red in tooth and claw” (Fromm 31). Therefore, Wells invocation of these emotions is reaffirming ungrounded hatred for the natural world that was unjust in a period where the environment held very little threat towards mankind.
After Pendrick returns to London, he invites the reader to consider how the hypothetical collapse of the human/non-human divide that occurred on the island might happen in Victorian society. He describes the degradation of individuals surrounding him as posing a threat to humanity, saying “I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation of the islanders will be played over again on a larger scale” (Wells, The Island of
Doctor Moreau 173). Rather than merely using the Beast Folk as a metaphor, Wells purposely
focuses on the loss of dualisms to fuel the reader’s ecophobia and create a call to action that will reinforce these dualisms that are perceived to exist. Wells was publicly vocal during the late nineteenth century about the possibility of mankind evolving into something inhuman if it didn’t control its primitive instincts, stressing the need for “acquired factors” that would steer “itself
against the currents and winds of the universe in which it finds itself” (Wells, The Shape of
Things to Come 430). Therefore, the novel’s message suggests that humans have a superiority
over nature that allows mankind to change its evolution in a way that the Beast Folk could not. This is reinstated in Pendrick’s conclusion of the tale, where he argues that: “There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope” (Wells, The
Island of Doctor Moreau 175). It is the “more than animal” aspect of humanity that reaffirms
mankind’s superior power and associates the animal kingdom as a vicious arena that must be feared. This conclusion preaches the need for stronger moral values in the working class and a less indulgent culture for the middle and upper classes, but does so by suggesting mankind has a moral obligation to defend its separation from the anarchy of the natural world. This hierarchy of mankind over nature is foundation of Wells’ projected fears of regression, as he is considering only the interests of humanity rather than the wider biosphere. Glen A. Love writes in Practical
Criticism that “an evolutionarily informed knowledge of human beings is central to averting
ecological disaster, and to champion a rethinking of the canon, reading from an ecological rather than a narrowly human-centered perspective” (Love, Practical Ecocriticism 35). Wells falsely argues from the perspective of scientific objectivism using Darwinism, but his ‘human-centered perspective’ manipulates this argument by focusing only on the evolution of mankind.
Chapter 2: The War of the Worlds
Wells’ The War of the Worlds is the portrayal of an alien invasion, where humanity is required to defend their place as the dominant species on Earth. It is a story where lethargic, decadent people in the London suburbs are forced into a primitive state during an invasion by technologically-advanced Martians, who are imperially expanding during a time that stagnant England was not. Wells used the Martian attack to rather explicitly demonstrate that the degradation of a decedent society has made mankind vulnerable when faced with social and physical struggles. What is more implicitly projected is Victorian phobias that working class labourers were becoming more automated because of their continual proximity to technology. Within the novel, the fear of the working class losing their humanity is closely linked to Victorian attitudes towards nature, because the novel describes the working class as the non-human ‘Other’ and conceptually aligns them with the surrounding, non-sentient environment that is perceived as inferior to mankind. Estok writes that by the nineteenth century there was a “redefinition of nature from participative subject and organism in an organic community to a pure object, a machine that ideally could be intimately and infinitely controlled and forced to spit out products in the service of an increasingly utilitarian capitalist economy” (Ecocriticism and
Shakespeare 7). Within the novel, the working class have joined with nature to become part of
this ‘machine’ that allows for capitalist production; therefore, they have become objectified rather than a subject that invokes sympathy. The Martians are representative of a future evolutionary shift, where the degradation of the working class has made them a more domineering but less altruistic species.
By bringing together these themes, Wells paints a fantastic dystopia that predicts how the world might be if mankind refused to take a more active role in its future evolution. This chapter
will look at how The War of the Worlds provides hegemonic reinforcement of the belief that human beings are superior to all other life forms, because they hold higher cognitive functions and a unique relationship with God. Religion has continually been identified as a key reason for mankind’s history of anthropocentrism. Lynn White alludes to this when she argues “that the environmental crisis is fundamentally a matter of the beliefs and values that direct science and technology”, while Christopher Manes discusses “the theories of Michel Foucault to consider how both literacy and Christian exegesis have rendered nature silent in Western discourse” (qtd. in Glotfelty xxvii). The anthropocentric privileging of mankind over all other life forms, through the belief that God created the Earth for humans, strengthens the myth that there are dualisms that separate nature and culture. Through the establishment of the human/non-human and nature/culture divides at the start of the novel, the subsequent loss of these boundaries is shown as the terrifying prediction of the future. The extremely negative portrayal of a world where mankind is no longer separate from nature is reinforcing and highly reflective of Victorian ecophobia.
Wells characteristically represented the future social decline of the working classes through hybrid creatures that belonged to neither nature nor humanity, but are
anthropocentrically categorised as part of nature because of their ‘otherness’. The Island of
Doctor Moreau featured this through the Beast Folk, who collapsed the binaries that define
humanity by being both human and animal. Within The War of the Worlds, the Martians pose a similar collapse of dualisms through the representation of the working class who have evolved into robotic hybrids. The novel offers caricature depictions of a working class who have changed due to the harsh conditions of long days of physical labour, which has made them physically stronger, increased their exposure to technology and kept them in a beastly state that is closer to
the perceived cruelty of the natural world. As Brake discusses in “Aliens and Time in the
Mechanical Age”, the Martians provide “a veiled criticism of the Mechanical Age, and the social machine of capitalist industry and its attendant troubles” (Brake 284). Characteristic of the time, it manifests fears that technology will strip mankind of its humanity and create hybrids between man and machine.
The Martians are compared to the working class through their connection to technology and detachment from society. When the Martians are seen out of their shell, their physical description is that they are “merely heads” without a digestion system or torso. This links the Martians to the working class as they are deprived of sensory enjoyment that comes from eating or leisure, because they are adapted for survival rather than the pursuit of pleasure. Wells also points to the process that might have led to the working class declining into this hybrid state, writing that “[t]he immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts” (2). Like the working class who were reported to contract illnesses from the air pollution that increased during the industrial revolution, the Martians have been exposed to life-threatening surroundings and the consequence is their evolution into these monstrous creatures that have fused with machines. The narrator shows this in his reflections of the tripods the Martians use, saying “Were they intelligent mechanisms? Such a thing was impossible. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body?” (Wells, The War of the Worlds 47). Just as the brain and the body are joined as one, so are the Martian and the tripod. The Martian are emphasised as being robotic through their use of the tripods as a life support machine, which creates the impression that they are conjoined with the machinery and lack the morality of a human mind. When they feed, it is the movement of the tripods that is described as doing the eating: “Apparently they tossed them
into the great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a workman’s basket hangs over his shoulders” (114), which also furthers the comparison with the working class.
It is the Martian’s fusing with the machines that leads to their destruction of the Earth, because they lack the altruism and ethics of humans. The Martians have one telepathic mind and therefore lack the human society that prevents unethical individuals from mistreating others. While the creatures are highly efficient, they do not stop to question whether their destruction of lower life forms is wrong and do not show altruism, even to their own species. This lack of ethics or altruism is depicted in their first appearance, where they ruthlessly destroy human onlookers. Witnessing this scene, the narrator writes: “by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run” (Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau 20). The Martians are experiencing great pain because they are on a planet with an incompatible atmosphere and they are falling down injured while they send out the heat ray, but there are no signs of concern or emotion shown between them. This is heavily in contrast with the humans who are wild with emotion and comically described as “supporters” because of their initial positivity and curiosity regarding the Martians.
The reader is encouraged to fear this declined state of the working class, because it suggests that their primitive instincts could lead to a revolt where they assume power, because they are technologically-advanced and have a ruthless lack of empathy. Wells demonstrates how the social decline of the decadent, overly-indulgent upper and middle classes could lead to their inability to maintain the social hierarchy. The social decline of the upper and middle classes is introduced in the opening lines of the novel:
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's… that as men
busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water (1).
The ennui that is idiosyncratic of the period is addressed in this passage through the use of scale, where individuals “busied” with personal concerns are cast in a much larger frame of the greater universe, resulting in all these preoccupations being trivialised. The self-involvement of the upper and middle classes is a comment on the “fatuous self-satisfaction of the everyday life” (Bergonzi 124); emphasised further by the novel being set in the quiet, leisurely suburbs of Surrey.
Wells attacks the arrogance and ignorance of the decadent English as an extension of a corrupted culture that lacks cognitive stimulation and the urge for acquiring knowledge. Much of the early tragedies that befall the victims of invasions could be partially blamed society’s reliance of entertaining rather than informative media. During the Martian’s initial landing, the aliens are at their most vulnerable as they are contained in a cylinder. While this is reported in the scientific magazine Nature, the news of the landing fails to reach the masses in time for the population to form a strategy for protecting themselves. When the newspapers finally report the landing, they create a false sense of security by publishing titles like “Message from Mars” (Wells, The War of
the Worlds 13) and turning the spacecraft into a place of spectacle. The consequence is that the
masses gather around the craft while it opens and they are ultimately slaughtered. Contrasting this lazy reliance on mass publications and the decadence of culture is the character Ogilva, who stands apart from his peers because of his interest in science and astronomy. The character is one of the first people to witness the landing because he is watching the skies and, through his interest in science, develops an appropriate wariness to the landing. When the spacecraft begins
to open he remains distant and tries to warn his fellow man by saying “help keep these idiots back. We don't know what's in the confounded thing” (15). Ogilva's unique reaction to the landing demonstrates the flaws of the masses that have invested their time pursuing pleasure rather than personal development. The narrator also highlights that Ogilva’s character is an exception to the masses, because he is part of the crowd that initially views the landing as a spectacle. Despite seeing the massacre on the green in person and fleeing from the event in fear, he immediately adapts to suburban life once he is back in an unaffected part of society, saying: “There was no sensible transition from one state of mind to the other. I was immediately the self of every day again – a decent ordinary citizen” (25). Even when he is later faced with the
realities of the situation, he is comforted when he “heard a train running towards Woking” (18) and is reassured that he is safe while everyday life continues. It is his own desire to stay within the comforts of leisurely culture that delays his escape to Leatherhead and nearly leads to his death.
The satirical portrayal of the decadent upper classes, as being like cattle or domesticated animals once society collapses, undermines the social Darwinist theories justifying laissez fair capitalism as a system that should favour the privileged. Instead, the novel shows that the wealthy would show little aptitude for survival when faced with the natural world. Not only has their lack of physical strain made them weak, but their reliance on the comforts of society makes them extremely emotional when deprived of luxuries. The privileged show little attempt to fight or defend their territory, but hide in brambles or bushes like animals much lower in the perceived evolutionary hierarchy. This is shown by the narrator, who says: “For that moment I touched an emotion beyond the common range of man, yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow and suddenly confronted by the
work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house” (142). The emotion he is describing in this passage is one of weakness seen in vulnerable animals who are primarily prey, rather than a more powerful predator in the natural kingdom. It is an excess of emotion
associated with desperation and victimisation, which is also shown more explicitly by the extreme mental deterioration of the narrator's fellow survivor in the scullery. The narrator describes “the weakness and insanity of the curate” (135), who – despite the lack of
characterisation – appears to be used to a wealthy lifestyle. This is supported by his fine attire and his inability to fast, which reflects a lifetime of not needing to.
Despite the vulnerability of mankind during the Martian invasion, anthropocentric human arrogance continues to be projected by the narrator. For example, he writes: “Before we judge them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races” (3). This statement sets up an ecological hierarchy with mankind at the top and separate from the non-human. While the sympathy advocated by the narrator initially suggests a
comparison between humans and Martians, it draws attention to the cognitive and moral
reasoning that mankind uniquely has, which allows them to reflect on their wider surroundings in a way the unethical Martians cannot. Throughout the novel, the narrator seeds other evidence of mankind’s superiority over nature even when faced with the collapse of the culture/nature divide. An example of this is his observation that the Martians have no wheels and that “it is curious that even on this earth Nature has never hit upon the wheel” (127). It is humans who belong to culture that have the wheel and Martians who belong to nature that have not. Therefore, regardless of humans potentially becoming domesticated pets or monstrous aliens, the narrator
reinforces the notion of humanity as a constant that belongs in a civilised, moral society that is separate from nature.
The narrator’s manipulation of the story to suit his anthropocentric perspective is evident in the novel’s conclusion. The narrator proclaims that the Martians were “slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this Earth” (167), believing humans' place as masters of the natural world is a “birthright”. The death of the Martians from lack of immunity to bacteria has the potential to demonstrate the irrelevance of mankind, echoing Christopher Manes’ argument that:
If fungus, one of the ‘lowliest’ of forms on a humanistic scale of values, were to go extinct tomorrow, the effect on the rest of the biosphere would be catastrophic; in contrast, if Homo sapiens disappeared the event would go virtually unnoticed by the vast majority of Earth’s life forms (24).
However, the use of religion to distract from this obvious truth demonstrates the manipulation of science to suit anthropocentric biases. This notion even reinforces the privileging of human over non-human and culture over nature, because it supports popular Victorian, anthropocentric beliefs about evolution. For example, biologist St. George Jackson Mivart stated that only the body is governed by evolution, where: “the human soul was a supernatural product of divine creation and, as an expression of the soul's transcendence of nature, human morality manifested a uniquely human freedom from natural causality” (Arnhart 77). Therefore, the repetition within the novel of mankind's higher purpose through their unique relationship with God supports the anthropocentric justification of exploiting a natural world that was created to serve mankind.
The narrator discusses that “our views of the human future must be greatly modified by these events” (Wells, The War of the Worlds 178) in reference to the global disillusionment left after the invasion, but these changes only strengthen mankind's belief that he is separate and superior to nature. The narrator emphasises that the invasion “has done much to promote the conception of the commonwealth of mankind” (178). Therefore, despite the story using a larger frame that highlights mankind's relationship with the wider ecosystem, when the threat of the invasion is overcome the narrator only is interested in benefits to his own species. This attitude appears to extend to his fellow survivors, as just weeks after the event “already they were busy with returning people; in places even there were shops open, and I saw a drinking fountain running water” (178). The narrator is celebrating this return of culture and society, unaware that the species is returning to the same state of self-absorption within their “busied” lives that he previously criticised. The invasion witnesses all of humanity desperately seeking food in the wild and reconnecting with the landscape, but the narrator only wishes to validate the rebuilding of buildings rather than the natural landscape in the aftermath. Love points out that in classic literature there are examples of “jaded European sophisticates temporarily withdraw from their corrupt cities and courts to a natural setting in which they experience change and redemption,” and this provides “grist for rich complications that have engaged many scholars, ecocritics in particular” (Love, Shakespeare’s Origin of the Species and Darwin’s Tempest 130). However, Wells’ The War of the World is anthropocentric and does not allow the reader to consider the positive aspects that might have come from mankind’s time in the wilderness or reliance on nature. In the final chapters of the novel, the narrator states: “All about the pit, and saved as by a miracle from everlasting destruction, stretched the great Mother of Cities.” (Wells, The War of
absence of it, shows an appreciation for culture or the isolated human realm rather than the natural world that they are reliant upon.
The final chapters of The War of the World insinuate colonialism as a method of asserting this separation and dominance over nature, as mankind adopts the Martians’ technology to invade new landscapes. The narrator concludes “If the Martians can reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is impossible for men” (179). This invasion of Venus’ landscape is comparable to the colonialism of the period, where “the transportation, both intentional and unintentional, of a vast array of ‘portmantau biota’: animals, plants and pathogens that in many cases dramatically reshaped the ecologies they entered” (Miller 480). Equally, John Miller argues in her essay “Postcolonial Ecocriticism and Victorian Studies” that “the nineteenth century comprised a pivotal state in global environmental history that brought dramatic ecological change to many regions of the world in the same moment that it forged momentous political shifts” and when considering this we must address “the question who can speak for nature” (476). Through Wells’ use of ecophobia to project the need to dominate landscapes, the novel supports the manipulation of the natural world through colonialisation and denies it a voice. The ecophobic imagery of destroyed cityscapes and the threat that “Martians will make pets of some of them; train them to do tricks” (Wells, The War of the Worlds 155) has vanished, thereby completing Wells’ pattern of envisioning the agency of nature and then overcoming it. The cathartic release from mankind’s temporary, perspective lack of power over nature
