SF-TH Inc
"News from Nowhere, the Time Machine" and the Break-Up of Classical Realism
Author(s): Patrick Parrinder
Source: Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, Science Fiction before Wells (Nov., 1976), pp.
265-274
Published by: SF-TH Inc
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OF CLASSICAL
THEBREAK-UP
REALISM
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and Mythmakers:1877-1938,"in Challengesin AmericanCulture,ed. RayB. Browneet al.
(US 1970),pp 150-77;two articlesby FranzRottensteiner,"KurdLasswitz,a GermanPioneer
of Science Fiction,"in SF: 7he OtherSide of Realism,ed. ThomasD. Clareson(US 1971),
im Weltraum:KurdLasswitz,"in Polaris 1, ed. Rottenpp 289-306,and "Ordnungsliebend
steiner (1973);and Klaus GuntherJust, "UeberKurdLasswitz,"in Aspekte der Zukunft
(Bern 1972),pp 32-65,whichsubsumestwo earlieressays on Lasswitz.
12.One might well speculate that Golden-AgeAnglo-American
SF profitedfrom Germany's loss. In effect it was left to Anglo-American
writersto explore the implicationsof
modernphysicsand the Germanrocketresearchof the twentiesandthirties.Indoingso they
had the assistanceof GermanemigreslikeWillyLey,an admirerof Lasswitz,who underother
circumstancesmightwell have contributedas a writerand criticto a GoldenAge of German
SF.
PatrickParrinder
News from Nowhere, The TimeMachine
and the Break-Upof ClassicalRealism
Critics of SF are understandablyconcerned with the integrityof the genre they
study.Yet it is a commonplacethat majorworksare oftenthe fruitof an interaction
of literarygenres, broughtabout by particularhistoricalpressures.Novels such as
Don Quixote,MadameBouaryand Ulysses may be read as symptomsof cultural
upheaval,parodyingand rejectingwhole classes of earlierfiction.My purposeis to
suggest how this principlemightbe appliedin the fieldof utopiaandSF. WhileMorris's News from Nowhere and Wells's The Time Machine have many generic
antecedents, their historicalspecificitywill be revealedas that of conflictingand
yet relatedresponses to the break-upof classicalrealismat the end of the nineteenth century.1
PatrickBrantlingerdescribes News from Nowhere in a recent essay2as "a
conscious anti-novel,hostile to virtuallyevery aspect of the great traditionof Victorianfiction."In a mutedsense, such a commentmightseem self-evident;Morris's
book is an acknowledgedmasterpieceof the "romance"genre which came to the
fore as a consciousreactionagainstrealisticfictionafterabout 1880.Yet News from
Nowhere is radicallyunlike the work of RiderHaggard,R.L. Stevenson or their
fellow-romancersin being a near-didacticexpression of left-wingpoliticalbeliefs.
WilliamMorriswas a Communist,so that it is interestingto considerwhat might
have been his reactionto Engels'letter to MargaretHarkness(1888),with its unfavorablecontrast of the "pointblank socialistnovel"or "Tendenzroman"
to the
"realism"of Balzac:
ThatBalzacthus was compelledto go againsthis own classsympathiesandpoliticalprejudices,
thathe saw the necessityof the downfallof his favouritenobles,anddescribedthemas people
deservingno betterfate;and that he saw the realmen of the futurewhere,forthe timebeing,
they alonewere to be found-that I considerone of the greatesttriumphsof Realism,andone
of the grandestfeaturesin old Balzac.3
It is not clear from the wording(the letterwas writtenin English)whetherEngels
saw Balzac's far-sightednessas a logical or an accidentalproduct of the Realist
movement which in his day extended to Flaubert,Zola, Turgenev,Tolstoy and
George Eliot. Engels'disparagementof Zola in this letter has led many Marxists
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to endorseBalzac'stechnicalachievementas a realistat the expense of his successors. Yet the passage might also be read as a tributeto Balzac's social understandingand politicalintegrity,withoutreferenceto any of the formaldoctrinesof
Balzacsecured for the Realistschool
realism.What is certainis that the "triumph"
was in parta personal,moraltriumph,based on his abilityto discardhis prejudices
and see the true facts. Engels'sstatementseems to drawon two senses of the term
"realism,"both of which originatedin the nineteenthcentury.Nor, I think,is this
coincidenceof literaryand politicalvaluationsaccidental.The fictionof Stendhal,
Balzac and Flaubertin particularis characterizedby the systematicunmaskingof
bourgeois and romantic attitudes. In their politicaldimension, these novelists
inherita traditionof analysisgoing back to Machiavelli,and whichis most evident
in Stendhal,who was not a professionalwriterbut an ex-administrator
and diplomat. Harry Levin defines the realismof these novelists as a critical,negational
mode in which "the truth is approximatedby means of a satiricaltechnique,by
There are two processes
unmaskingcant or debunkingcertainmisconceptions."4
suggested here: the writer'sown rejectionof cant and ideology,and his "satirical
technique."Both are common to many SF novels, includingThe TimeMachine,
althoughin terms of representationalidiom these are the opposite of "realistic"
works. News from Nowhere, on the other hand, is the utopianmasterpieceof a
writerwho in his life went againsthis class sympathiesandjoinedthe "realmen of
the future,"as Balzac did by implicationin his books. Morrishas this in common
with Engels (who distrustedhim personally).Hostilecriticshave seen his socialist
worksas merelya transpositionof the longingsfor beauty,chivalryandvanquished
greatness which informhis early poetry. As literarycriticismthis seems to me
shallow. Nor do Morris'spoliticalactivitiesprovideevidence of poetic escapism
or refusalto face the facts. It was not by courtesythat he was eventuallymourned
as one of the stalwartsof the socialistmovement.5
On the surface,News from Nowhere (1890)was a response to a utopiaby a
fellow-socialist-EdwardBellamy'sLookingBackward,publishedtwo yearsearlier.
Morrisreviewedit in The Commonweal,the weeklypaperof the SocialistLeague,
on 22 June 1889.He was appalledby the servilityof Bellamy'svisionof the corporate
state, and felt that the book was politicallydangerous.He also noticed the subjectivityof the utopian form, its element of self-revelation.WhateverBellamy's
intentions,his book was the expression of a typicallyPhilistine,middle-classoutlook. News from Nowhere was intended to provide a dynamic alternativeto
Bellamy'smodel of socialistaspiration;a dream or vision which was ideologically
superior as well as creative, organic and emotionallyfulfillingwhere Bellamy's
was industrialized,mechanisticand stereotyped.Morriswas strikinglysuccessful
in these aims.ITheconvictionand resonanceof his "utopianromance"speak, however, of deeper causes than the stimulusprovidedby Bellamy.
News from Nowhere is constructed around two basic images or topoi:the
miraculoustranslationof the narratorinto a better future (contrastedwith the
long historicalstruggleto buildthat future,as describedin the chapter"Howthe
ChangeCame"),and the journeyup the Thames,whichbecomes a richlynostalgic
passage towards an uncomplicatedhappiness-a happinesswhich proves to be
a mirage,and which authorand readercan only aspireto in the measurein which
they take up the burdenof the present. Only the firstof these topoi is paralleled
in Bellamy.The second points in a quite differentdirection.News from Nowhere
is a dream taking place withina frameof mundanepoliticallife-the meetingat
which"therewere six persons present, and consequentlysix sections of the party
were represented,four of which had strong but divergentAnarchistopinions"
(?1). The dream is only potentiallya symbol of reality,since there is no pseudoscientific "necessity"that things will evolve in this way. The frame occasions a
gentle didacticism(in dreams begin responsibilities),but also a degree of self-
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consciousnessaboutthe narrativeart. "Guest,"the narrator,is botha thirdperson
("ourfriend")and Morrishimself;the change fromthird-to first-personnarration
is made at the end of the openingchapter.Morris'ssubtitle,furthermore,refers
to the story as a "UtopianRomance."Manyobjectionswhichhave been made to
the book reflectthe reader'sdiscomfiturewhen asked to seriouslyimaginea world
in which enjoymentand leisureare not paid for in the coin of other people'soppression and suffering.It could be arguedthat Morrisshouldnot have attempted
it--any more than Milton in Paradise Lost should have attempted the task of
justifyingthe ways of God to men. Morris,however,held a view of the relationof
art to politics which emphaticallyendorsed the project of imaginingNowhere.
One of his guises is that of a self-proclaimedescapist: "Dreamerof dreams,
born out of my due time,/WhyshouldI striveto set the crooked straight?"News
from Nowhere standsapartfromthese lines from The EarthlyParadise(1868-70),
as wellas fromthe majorityof Morris'sprose romances.TogetherwithA Dreamof
John Ball (1888) it was addressed to a socialist audience and serializedin The
Commonweal.News from Nowhere retainssome of the colorationof John Ball's
medievalsetting, but, for a Victorian,radicalmedievalismcould serve as an "estranging," subversive technique. Two of the major diagnoses of industrial
civilization,Carlyle'sPast and Presentand Ruskin'sessay "TheNatureof Gothic,"
Morris'sown influential
bearwitness to the power of such medievalistimagination.
lectureson art derivefrom"TheNatureof Gothic,"and are strenuousattemptsto
"set the crooked straight"even at the cost of violentrevolutionand the destruction of the hierarchicaland predominantly"literary"art of the bourgeoisie.6It is
easy to find gaps between his theory of cultureand his practicein literatureand
the decorativearts.7Nonetheless, his attack on middle-classart finds important
expressionin News from Nowhere, whichis an attemptto reawakenthose aspirations in the workingclass whichhavebeen deadenedandstultifiedundercapitalism.
Genuineart for Morrisdoes more than merelyreflectan impoverishedlifeback to
the reader:"Itis the provinceof art to set the true idealof a fulland reasonablelife
before [the worker], a life to which the perceptionand creation of beauty, the
enjoymentof real pleasurethat is, shall be felt to be as necessary to man as his
daily bread."8News from Nowhere, however deficient in politicalscience, is a
movingand convincingpictureof a communityof individualslivingfulland reasonable lives. The "enjoymentof real pleasure"beginswhen the narratorwakes on a
sunny summermorning,steps out of his Thames-sidehouse and meets the boatman who, refusingpayment,takes him for a leisurelytripon the river.
Morris'sattack on the shoddinessof Victoriandesign and the separationof
highart frompopularart was pressedhome in his lectures.InNews fromNowhere
he turns his attentionto anotherproductof the same ethos-the Victoriannovel.
Guest's girl-friend,Ellen, tells him that there is "somethingloathsome"about
nineteenth-centurynovelists.
Some of them,indeed,do hereandthereshow some feelingforthose whomthe history-books
call "poor,"and of the miseryof whose lives we have some inkling;but presentlythey give it
up, and towardsthe end of the storywe must be contentedto see the hero andheroineliving
happilyin an islandof bliss on other people's troubles;and that aftera long series of sham
troubles(or mostly sham) of their own making,illustrated
by drearyintrospectivenonsense
abouttheirfeelingsand aspirations,and allthe rest of it;whilethe worldmusteven thenhave
gone on its way, and dug and sewed andbakedandcarpenteredroundaboutthese uselessanimals. [?22]
Morrisintroducedhis poem The EarthlyParadise as the tale of an "isleof bliss"
amid the "beatingof the steely sea"; but the "heroand heroine"evoked by Ellen
are also clearly from Dickens. (The "drearyintrospectivenonsense" might be
George Eliot's.)Guest is seen by the Nowheriansas an emissaryfromthe landof
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Dickens (?19). Both Morris and Bellamy shared the general belief that future
generationswould understandthe Victorianperiod throughDickens's works. In
LookingBackward, Dr Leete is the spokesman for a more bourgeoisposterity:
Judged by our standard,he [Dickens]overtops all the writersof his age, not because his
literarygenius was highest,but because his great heartbeat for the poor, because he made
the cause of the victimsof society his own, and devotedhis pen to exposingits crueltiesand
shams.No man of his timedidso muchas he to turnmen'smindsto the wrongandwretchedness of the old orderof things,and open theireyes to the necessityof the greatchangethat
was coming,althoughhe himselfdid not clearlyforesee it. [?131
Not only Morris would have found this "Philistine."But Morris's Ellen and Bellamy's
Dr Leete are on opposite sides in the ideological debate about Dickens's value,
which continues to this day. One of the earliest critics to register Dickens's ambiguity was Ruskin, who denounced Bleak House as an expression of the corruption
of industrial society, while praising Hard Times for its harshly truthful picture of
the same society.'0 Morris,too, was dividedin his response. When asked to list
the world's hundred best books, he came up with 54 names which included Dickens
as the foremost contemporary novelist. The list was dominated by the "folkbibles"-traditional epics, folktales and fairy tales-which he drew upon in his
romances." Dickens's humour and fantasy appealed to the hearty, extrovert side
of Morris stressed by his non-socialistfriends and biographers.'2 Yet he also
reprintedthe "Podsnap"chapter of Our MutualFriend in The Commonweal,'3
and inveighedagainstPodsnapperyand the "counting-house
on the top of a cinderheap" in his essay "How I Became a Socialist." It is the world of the counting-house
on the cinder-heap-the world of Our Mutual Friend-whose negation Morris
set out to present in News from Nowhere.
Not only do the words "our friend" identify Guest on the opening page, but
one of the earliest characters Morris introduces is Henry Johnson, nicknamed
Boffinor the "GoldenDustman"in honourof a Dickensianforebear.MrBoffinin
Our Mutual Friend is a legacy-holder earnestly acquiring some culture at the hands
of the unscrupulous Silas Wegg; Morris's Golden Dustman really is both a cultured man and a dustman, and is leading a "full and reasonable life." He has a
Dickensian eccentricity, quite frequent among the Nowherians and a token of the
individuality their society fosters. This character, I would suggest, is strategically
placed to insinuate the wider relation of Morris's "Utopian Romance" to nineteenthcentury fiction.
The tone of News from Nowhere is set by Guest's initialouting on the Thames.
Going to bed in mid-winter,he wakes to his boat-tripon an earlymorningin high
summer. The water is clear, not muddy, and the bridge beneath which he rows is
not of iron construction but a medieval creation resembling the Ponte Vecchio or
the twelfth-century London Bridge. The boatman lacks the stigmata of the "working
man" and looks amazed when Guest offers him money. This boat-trip is a negative
counterpart to the opening chapter of Our Mutual Friend, in which Gaffer Hexam,
a predatory Thames waterman, and his daughter Lizzie are disclosed rowing on
the river at dusk on an autumn evening. Southwark and London Bridges, made of
iron and stone respectively, tower above them. The water is slimy and oozy, the
boat is caked with mud and the two people are lookingfor the floatingcorpses of
suicides which provide a regular,indeed a nightly,source of livelihood.Dickens
created no more horrifying image of city life. His scavengers inaugurate a tale of
murderousness,conspiracyand bitter class-jealousy.Morris'sutopianwaterman,
by contrast, guides his Guest through a classless world in which creativity and a
calm Epicureanism flourish.
Two further Dickensian parallelscentre upon the setting of the river. The Houses
of Parliamentin News from Nowhere have been turnedinto the Dung Market,a
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storageplace for manure. Dickens scrupulouslyavoids the explicitlyexcremental,
but in Hard Timeshe calls Parliamentthe "nationalcinder-heap,"and a reference
to the sinisterdust-heapsof Our MutualFriendmay also be detected both here
and in "HowI Became a Socialist."It seems the Nowherianshave put the home of
windbagsand scavengersto its properpurpose.In the second halfof News from
Nowhere, Guest journeys up-riverwith a party of friends;this again, perhaps
recalls the furtiveand murderousjourneyof BradleyHeadstone along the same
route. Headstone tracks down Eugene Wrayburn,his rivalfor the love of Lizzie
Hexam. Guest's love for Ellen,by contrast,flourishesamongfriendswho are free
from sexual jealousy. Yet jealousyhas not disappearedaltogether,for at Mapledurhamthe travellershear of a quarrelin whicha jiltedloverattackedhis rivalwith
an axe (?24). Shortly afterwards,we meet the Obstinate Refusers, whose abstention from the haymakingis likenedto that of Dickensiancharactersrefusing
to celebrateChristmas.Even in the high summerof Nowhere,the darkshadowof
Dickens is occasionallypresent, preparingfor the black cloud at the end of the
book underwhich Guest returnsto the nineteenthcentury.
News from Nowhere has a series of deliberateechoes of Dickens'swork,and
especially of Our Mutual Friend. Such echoes sharpen the reader'ssense of a
miraculoustranslationinto the future. In chapters 17 and 18 the miracleis "explained"by Hammond'snarrativeof the politicalgenesis of Nowhere-a narrative
which recalls the historiographical
aims of novelists such as Scott, Disraeliand
George Eliot. These elements of future history and Dickensianpastiche show
Morrissubsumingand rejectingthe traditionof Victorianfictionand historiography.
The same process guides his depictionof the kinds of individualand social relationshipswhich constitute the ideal of a "fulland reasonablelife." Raymond
Williamshas definedthe achievementof classicalrealismin terms of the balance
it maintainsbetween social and personalexistence:"Itoffersa valuingof a whole
way of life, a society that is largerthan any of the individualscomposingit, and at
the same time valuingcreations of human beings who, while belongingto and
affectedby andhelpingto definethiswayof life,arealso,intheirownterms,absolute
ends in themselves. Neither element, neither the society nor the individual,is
there as a priority."'14
SF and utopianfictionare notoriousfor theirfailureto maintain such a blance.But the achievementthat Williamscelebratesshouldbe regarded, in my view, not as an artisticunityso much as a coalitionof divergentinterests.
Coalitionsare producedby the pressures of history;by the same pressuresthey
fallapart.In mid-Victorian
fiction,the individuallifeis repeatedlydefinedandvalued
in termsof its antithesisto the crowd, or mass society. The happinessof Dickens's
LittleDorritand Clennamis finallyengulfedby the noise of the streets;characters
like George Eliot'sLydgateand GwendolenHarlethare proudindividuals
struggling
to keep apart from the mass, while their creator sets out to recordthe "whisper
in the roar of hurryingexistence."'5The loomingthreatof society in these novels
is weighed against the possibilityof spiritualgrowth. George Eliot portraysthe
mentalstrugglesof characterswho are, in the worldlysense, failures.She cannot
portraythem achievingsocial success commensuratewith theirgifts, so that even
at her greatest her social range remainsdeterminedly"provincial"
and she can
define her characters'limitationswith the finalityof an obituarist.She cannot
show the source of change, only its effects and the way it is resisted. Dickens's
despairat the irreducibleface of society led him in his later works to fantasizeit,
portrayingit as throttled by monstrousinstitutionsand presidedover by spirits
and demons. His heroes and heroines are safe from the monstrous tentacles
only in their "islandof bliss."One reason why Dickens'sdomestic scenes are so
overloadedwith sentimentalsignificanceis that here his thwartedutopianinstincts
were forced to seek outlet. The house as a miniatureparadiseoffsets the hellof a
society.
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It shouldnot be surprisingthat a novelistsuch as Dickenspossessed elements
of a fantastic and utopian vision.16They are distortedand disjointedelements,
whereas Morris in News from Nowhere takes similarelementsand reunitesthem
in a pure and uncomplex whole. Several of his individualcharactersdisplay a
Dickensianeccentricity,and they all have the instantcapacityfor mutualrecognitionand trust whichDickens'sgood charactersshow. Yet this mutualtrustis allembracing;it no longerdefines who you are, since it extends to everybody,even
the most casual acquaintances(Hammond,the social philosopherof Nowhere,
explains that there are no longerany criminalclasses, since crimes are not the
workof fugitiveoutcastsbut the "errorsof friends"[?12]).Guest'ssense of estrangementin Nowhereis most vividin the earlyscenes wherehe is shownroundLondon.
Not only has the city become a gardensuburband the crowdsthinnedout, butthe
people he meets are instinctivelyfriendly,respondingimmediatelyto a stranger's
glance.They are the antithesisof Dickens'scrowdsof the "noisyandthe eagerand
the arrogantand the forwardand the vain,"which "fretted,and chafed,and made
their usual uproar."'17
The friendlycrowd is such a paradoxthat Morris'simagination ultimatelyfails him slightly,so that he relapses into WardourStreet fustian:
Therewithhe drewreinandjumpeddown,andI followed.A veryhandsomewoman,splendidly
cladin figuredsilk, was slowlypassingby, lookingintothe wAndows
as she went.To herquoth
Dick:"Maiden,wouldyou kindlyholdour horse whilewe go in for a little?"She noddedto us
witha kindsmile,and fellto pattingthe horse withher prettyhand.
"Whata beautifulcreature!"said I to Dick as we entered.
"What,old Greylocks?"said he, witha sly grin.
"No, no," said I; "Goldylocks,-the lady."[?6]
Morris here is feeling his way toward the authenticallychildlikeview of sexual
relationshipswhich emerges duringthe journeyup-river.Guest begins to enjoya
gathering fulfillment,movingly portrayed but also clearly regressive. Annie at
Hammersmithis a mother-figure,Ellen a mixtureof sister and childhoodsweetheart. Guest, though past his primeof life, feels a recoveryof vigourwhichis, in
the event, illusory;his fate is not to be rejuvenatedin Nowhere but to returnto
the nineteenthcentury, strengthenedonly in his longingfor change. Though he
shares his companions'journey to the haymaking,his exclusion from the feast
to celebrate their arrivalis another invertedDickensiansymbol.'8The returnto
the presentis doublyupsettingto the "happyending"convention(seen forexample
in Bellamy);forit is not a nightmarebuta stoicalaffirmation
of politicalresponsibility.
Guest's last momentsin Nowhereshow himrediscoveringthe forgottenexperience
of alienationand anonymity.
Dickens and George Eliot were moralistsin their fiction and supportersof
social and educationalreformoutside it. Morrisworkedto improveVictoriantaste
whilecomingto believethat there were no "moral"or "reformist"
solutionsto the
social crisis. It was the perspectiveof the labourmovementand the revolutionary
"riverof fire"'9which enabled him to reassemble the distortedaffirmationof a
Dickens novel into a clear, utopian vision. His vision draws strength from its
fidelityto socialist ideals and to Morris'sown emotionalneeds. But Morris,for all
his narrativeself-consciousness, can only register and not transcend what is
ultimatelyan aesthetic impasse.His book is News from Nowhere,or An Epochof
Rest; it shows not only the redemptionof man'ssufferingpast but his enjoyment
of Arcadianquietisrn.In Nowhere pleasuremay be had "withoutan afterthought
of the injusticeand miserabletoil which made my leisure"(?20). Morrisomits to
describe how in economic terms leisureis produced,and how in politicalterms a
society builtby the mass labourmovementhas dispersedinto peacefulanarchism.
He stakes everythingon the mood of "secondchildhood":
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"Secondchildhood,"saidI in a lowvoice,andthen blushedat my doublerudeness,and'hoped
that he hadn'theard.But he had, and tumed to me smiling,and said:"Yes,why not?And for
my part, I hope it may last long;and that the world'snext periodof wise and unhappymanhood, if that should happen,will speedilylead us to a thirdchildhood:if indeedthis age be
not our third.Meantime,my friend,you must know that we are too happy,both individually
and collectivelyto troubleourselvesaboutwhat is to come hereafter."[?16]
It is true that the passage hints at furtherlaboursof social constructionlyingin
store for man. Morris,however,prefersnot to contemplatethem. One is forcedto
conclude that in News from Nowhere the ideal of the perfectionof labouris developed as an alternativeto the dynamismof Western society. We are left with
the irresolvableambiguityof the Morrisianutopia, which peoples an exemplary
socialist society with characters who are, in the strict sense in which Walter
Pater had used the term, decadents.20
H.G. Wells first listened to Morrisat socialistmeetingsat Hammersmithin the
1880s. Even for a penniless South Kensingtonscience student, attendingsuch
meetingswas an act of social defiance.But, as he laterrecalled,he soon forgothis
"idea of a council of war, and...was being vastly entertained by a comedy of
picturesquepersonalities."2'He saw Morris as trapped in the role of poet and
aesthete, yet in A Modern Utopia (1905) he readilyacknowledgedthe attractiveness of a Morrisianearthlyparadise:
Were we free to have our untrammelleddesire, I suppose we should followMorristo his
Nowhere,we shouldchange the natureof man and the natureof thingstogether;we should
make the whole race wAse,tolerant,noble, perfect-wave our handsto a splendidanarchy,
every man doingas it pleases him, and none pleased to do evil, in a worldas good in its essentialnature,as ripe and sunny,as the worldbeforethe Fall.22
Wells, in effect, accuses Morrisof lackingintellectual"realism."His response to
this appearsto far less advantagein A ModernUtopia, however,than it does in
his dystopianworks beginningwith The TimeMachine(1895).A ModernUtopia
is an over-ambitiouspiece of system-building,
reflectingits author'seclecticsearch
for a "new aristocracy"or administrativeelite; 7he TimeMachineis a mordantly
criticalexaminationof concepts of evolutionand progress and the futurestate,
with particularreferenceto News from Nowhere.
WhileGuest wakes up in Hammersmith,the TimeTravellerclimbsdownfrom
his machinein the year 802,701A.D. at a spot aboutthree milesaway,in whatwas
formerlyRichmond.The gay, brightly-dressed
people, the verdantparklandscape
and the bathingin the river are stronglyreminiscentof Morris.The Eloi live in
palace-likecommunalbuildings,and are lackingin personalor sexualdifferentiation.
On the eveningof his arrival,the Time Travellerwalks up to a hilltopand surveys
the green landscape,murmuring"Communism"to himself(?6). The referenceis
to Morrisratherthan to Marx(whoseworkand ideasWellsneverknewwell).Wells
has alreadybegun his merciless examinationof the "second childhood"which
Morrisblithelyaccepted in Nowhere.
From the moment of landingwe are awareof tension in the Time Traveller's
responses. He arrives in a thunderstormnear a sinister colossus, the White
Sphinx, and soon he is in a frenzyof fear. The hospitalityof the Eloi,who shower
him with garlandsand fruit,does not cure his anxiety.Unlikemost previoustravellers in utopia,he is possessed of a humanpride,suspicionand highly-strung
sensitivity which he cannot get rid of. He reacts with irritability
when asked if he has
come fromthe sun in a thunderstorm:"Itlet loose the judgmentI had suspended
upon their clothes, their fraillightlimbsand fragilefeatures.A flow of disappointment rushedacross my mind.For a momentI felt thatI hadbuiltthe TimeMachine
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in vain"(?5). When they teach him their language,it is he who feels likea "schoolmaster amidstchildren,"and soon he has the Eloipermanentlylabelledas a class
of five-year-olds.
The apparentpremiseof The TimeMachineis one of scientificanticipation,
the imaginativeworking-outof the laws of evolutionand thermodynamics,with
a dash of Marxismadded. Critics sometimes stress the primacyof the didactic
surface in such writing.23
But The TimeMachine is not exhaustedonce we have
paraphrasedits explicit message. Like News from Nowhere, it is a notablyselfconscious work. Wells's story-tellingframe is more elaboratethan Morris's,and
RobertM. Philmushas drawnattentionto the studiedambiguityWells puts in the
Time Traveller'smouth:"Takeit as a lie-or a prophecy.Say I dreamedit in the
workshop"(?16).24One of his hero's ways of authenticatinghis story is to expose
the fabricationsof utopianwriters.A "realtraveller,"he protests, has no access
to the "vast amount of detail about building,and social arrangements,and so
forth"foundin utopianversions(?8).He has "noconvenientciceronein the pattern
of the Utopianbooks"(?8). He has to workeverythingout for himselfby a process
of conjectureand refutation-a crucialfeatureof The TimeMachinewhichdoes
much to convey the sense of intellectualrealism and authenticity.The visit to
the Palace of Green PorcelainparallelsGuest's visitto the BritishMuseum,but instead of a Hammondauthoritatively
placed to expound"Howthe ChangeCame,"
the Time Travellermust rely on habits of observationand reasoningwhich his
creatoracquiredat the NormalSchool of Science.
In The Time Machine Wells uses a halloweddevice of realisticfiction-the
demonstrationof superior authenticityover some other class of fictions-in a
context. His aim is, in Levin'swords, to "unmaskcant" and debunk
"romance")
misconceptions.The truthshe affirmsare both of a scientific(or Huxleyan)and a
more traditionalsort. The worldof EloiandMorlocksis revealedfirstas devolutionary and then as one of predatorand prey, of homo hominilupus.This must have
a political,not merely a biologicalsignificance.No society, Wells is saying, can
escape the brutish aspects of human nature defined by classical bourgeois
rationalistssuch as Machiavelliand Hobbes.A societythatclaimsto haveabolished
these aspects may turnout to be harbouringpredatorinessin a peculiarlyhorrible
form. This must become apparentonce we can see the whole society. In Morris's
Nowhere,partof the economicstructureis suppressed;there is no wayof knowing
what it wouldhave been like. In The TimeMachineit is only necessaryto put the
Eloi and Morlocks in the picture together-whether they are linked by a class
relationship,or a species relationship,or some evolutionarycombinationof the
two-to destroy the mirage of utopian communism.The Dickensiansociety of
scavengerscannot be so lightlydismissed.
In contrast to Morris'smellowArcadianism,The TimeMachineis an aggressive book, moving throughfear and melodramato the heights of poetic vision.
The story beganas a philosophicaldialogueand emergedfromsuccessiverevisions
as a grippingadventure-talewhich is also a mine of poetic symbolism.To read
throughthe variousversionsis to trace Wells'spersonaldiscoveryof the "scientific
romance."25
The TimeMachinein its finalformavoidscertainlimitationsof boththe
Victorianrealistnovel and the politicalutopia.An offshootof Wells'suse of fantasy
to explore man's temporalhorizons is that he portrayshumannatureas at once
more exalted and more degradedthan the conventionalrealistestimate.
Imaginingthe futureliberatesWells'shero from individualmoralconstraints;
the story reveals a devolved, simian species which engages the Time Traveller
in a ruthless,no-holds-barredstruggle.The scenario of the futureis a repository
for symbolismof variouskinds.The towers and shaftsof the storyare recognizably
Freudian,while the names of the Eloiand Morlocksalludeto Miltonicangels and
devils.The Time Travellerhimselfis a variantof the nineteenth-centuryromantic
hero. Like Frankenstein,he is a modern Prometheus.The identificationis sealed
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THEBREAK-UP
OF CLASSICAL
REALISM
273
in the Palace of Green Porcelainepisode, where he steals a matchboxfrom the
museum of earlierhumanity,whose massivearchitecturalremainsmightbe those
of Titans. But there is no longer a fit recipientfor the gift of fire, and the Time
Traveller'smatches are only lit in self-defence.We see himtravelto the end of the
world,alone, claspedto his machineon the sea-shore.Whenhe failsto returnfrom
his second journeywe mightimaginehim as condemnedto perpetualtime-travelling,as Prometheuswas condemnedto perpetualtorture.
There are few unqualifiedheroes in Victorianrealisticfiction(thisis a question
of genericconventions,not of powerof characterization).
The zenithof the realist's
art appears in characters such as Lydgate, Dorothea, Pip and Clennam,all of
whom are shown as failures,and not often very dignifiedfailures.They are people
circumscribedand hemmedin by bourgeoisexistence. Intensityof consciousness
alone distinguishestheirs from the average life of the ordinarymember of their
social class. As against this, Wells offers an epic adventurerwho (like Morris's
knightsand saga-heroes)is close to the supermenof popularromance.His hero
is guiltyof sexual mawkishnessand indulgesin Byronicoutburstsof temperament.
But what distinguisheshim from the run-of-the-mill
fantasy hero is the epic and
public nature of his mission. As Time Travellerhe takes up the majorcognitive
challengeof the Darwinistage. He boasts of coming"outof thisage of ours, thisripe
prime of the humanrace, when Fear does not paralyseand mysteryhas lost its
terrors"(?10). The retreat of superstitionbefore the sceptical,scientificattitude
dictated that the exploit of a modern Prometheusor Faust should be told in a
scaled-down,"romance"form. Nonetheless, the Time Travellershares the pride
of the scientists, inventorsand explorersof the nineteenthcentury,and not the
weakness or archaismof its literaryheroes.
There is a dark side to his pride. The scene where he surveys the burning
Morlocksshows Wells failingto distancehis hero sufficiently.The Time Traveller
is not ashamedof his cruel detachmentfrom the species he studies,nor does he
regrethavingunleashedhis superior"firepower."His only remorse is for Weena,
the one creaturehe respondedto as "human,"and Wellshintsthat her deathprovides justificationfor the slaughterof the Morlocks.This rationalization
is a clear
example of imperialistpsychology;but Wells was both critic and productof the
imperialistethos. Morris,who was so sharp about Bellamy,would surely have
spotted his vulnerabilityhere. It is not merelythe emotions of scientificcuriosity
whichare satisfiedby the portrayalof a Hobbesian,dehumanizedworld.
News from Nowhere and The TimeMachineare based on a fusionof propagandaand dream.Theircomplexityis due in partto the genericinteractionswhich
I have traced. Morristurns from the degradedworld of Dickens to create its
negativeimagein a Nowhereof mutualtrust and mutualfulfilment.Wellswritesa
visionarysatire on the utopianidea which reintroducesthe romantichero as explorer and prophet of a menacingfuture. Both writerswere respondingto the
break-upof the coalitionof interestsin mid-Victorian
fiction,andtheiruse of fantasy
conventionsasserted the place of visionsand expectationsin the understanding
of
contemporaryreality.Schematically,we may see Wells'sSF novel as a productof
the warringpoles of realismand utopianism,as representedby DickensandMorris.
More generally,I wouldsuggestthat to study the aetiologyof workssuch as News
from Nowhere and The Time Machine is to ask oneself fundamentalquestions
about the natureand functionsof literary"realism."
NOTES
1. I use "realism"in a broadlyLukacsiansense, to denote the majorrepresentational
idiomof 19th-centuryfiction.See e.g. GeorgLukacs,Studiesin EuropeanRealism(US 1964).
I also arguethat "realism"in literaturecannot ultimatelybe separatedfromthe modernnon-
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274
STUDIES
SCIENCE-FICTION
literarysenses of the term.No sooner is a conventionof literaryrealismestablishedthanthe
inherentlydynamic"realisticoutlook"starts to turnagainstthat convention.
"News from Nowhere:Morris'sSocialistAnti-Novel,"Victorian
2. PatrickBrantlinger,
Studies 19(1975):35ff.This article examines Morris'saesthetic in greater depth than was
possiblehere, withconclusionsthat are close to my own.
3. KarlMarxand FrederickEngels,On Literatureand Art,ed. Lee Baxandalland Stefan
Morawski(US 1974),p 117.
4. HarryLevin,The Gates of Horn (US 1966),p 55.
5. The best politicalbiographyis E.P.Thompson,WilliamMorris:Romanticto Revolutionary (UK 1955).
6. Morris'spublishedlectures are reprintedin his Collected Works,ed. May Morris,
vols. 22-23 (UK 1914),and some unpublishedones in The UnpublishedLecturesof William
Morris,ed. Eugene D. LeMire(US 1969). Three recent (but no more than introductory)
selectionsare: WilliamMorris:Selected Writingsand Designs,ed. Asa Briggs(US-UK1962);
PoliticalWritingsof WilliamMorris,ed. A.L. Morton(US-UK 1962);and WilliamMorris,
Selected Writings,ed. G.H. Cole (US 1961).
7. Morristook up the practiceof handicraftsin 1860andbecame, in effect, an extremely
successfulmiddle-classdesigner.His theoriesof the unityof designand executionwere often
in advanceof his workshoppractice.See e.g. Peter Floud,"TheInconsistenciesof William
Morris,"The Listener52(1954):615ff.
8. Morris,"HowI Became a Socialist"(1894).
9. See note 6.
10. Ruskincommentedon Bleak House in "Fiction-Fair and Foul,"publishedin the
NineteenthCentury(1880-1),and on Hard Timesin Unto ThisLast (1860).
11. CollectedWorks22:xiiiff.
12. J.W. Mackailrecords somewhat fatuouslythat "In the moods when he was not
dreamingof himselfas Tristramor Sigurd,he identifiedhimselfverycloselywith...JoeGargery
and Mr Boffin."-The Lifeof WilliamMorris(UK 1901),1:220-21.Cf. PaulThompson,The
Workof WilliamMorris(UK 1967),p 149.
13. See E.P. Thompson(Note 5) pp 165-67.I have not managedto locatethis in the files
of The Commonweal.
14. RaymondWilliams,The Long Revolution(UK 1961),p 268.
15. George Eliot,Introductionto FelixHolt (1866).
16. The fantasticand utopianelements in Dickens are associated with his genius for
characterof socialevil,
satireand melodrama:withhis visionof the interlocking,institutional
and his delightin sharpand magicalpolarizationsbetween the strongholdsof evil and those
of beautyand innocence.The elementsof traditionalromancein Dickens'svisionmakehim
an exaggerated,but by no means uniquecase; a utopianelementcould,I think,be tracedin
every great novelist.
17. Dickens,LittleDorrit,?34.
18. Tom Middlebro'argues that both river and feast are "religioussymbols"-"Brief
Thoughtson News from Nowhere,"Journalof the WilliamMorrisSociety 2(1970):8.If so,
this was true for Dickens as well, and I wouldsee him as Morris'simmediatesource. The
symbolismof the feast is present in all Dickens'sworks and has been discussed by Angus
Wilson,"CharlesDickens:A Haunting,"CriticalQuarterly2(1960):107-08.
19. Morris,"TheProspects of Architecturein Civilization"
in Hopes and Fears for Art
(1882).
20. Paterdescribesthe poetryof the Pleiadeas "anaftermath,a wonderfullatergrowth,
the productsof which have to the fullthe subtle and delicatesweetness whichbelongto a
refinedand comely decadence."Preface to The Renaissance(1873). The compatibilityof
one aspect of Pater'sand Morris'ssensibilityis suggestedby the former'sreviewof "Poems
by WilliamMorris,"WestminsterReview34(1868):300ff.
21. SaturdayReview82(1896):413.
22. Wells,A ModernUtopia ?1:1.
23. See e.g. JoannaRuss'sremarkson The TimeMachine,SFS 2(1975):114-15.
24. RobertM. Philmus,Into the Unknown(US 1970),p 73.
25. The most tellingcontrastis with the NationalObserverversion(1894).Fora reprint
of this and an account of Wells'srevisionsof The TimeMachinesee his Early Writingsin
Science and Science Fiction,ed. RobertM. Philmusand DavidY. Hughes(US 1975),pp 47ff.
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