Context

As a class, I think we had some issues getting into the context of H.G. Wells' world. Professor Jackson's point about European attitudes pre-WWI explained much of our disbelief about perfecting our sciences. It's certainly true that Americans especially tend to forget about the devastating aftereffects of World War I because of our WWII-centric Greatest Generation culture. We weren't really in WWI for that long, so we don't think of it as an important, America Saves the World (tm) moment. Our hero/savior complex tends to get in the way of proper history.

What I find in some other blog posts, though, is a willing (though probably self-aware) blindness to the context of women's and class issues that Wells was trying to present. From a literary standpoint, we need to trust the narrative voice of the book. For the sake of reading Wells in proper context, we need to believe Wells' version of the future. We need to believe what he does about biology. We need to believe that the Eloi were so stupid as to be thought of as mere pets, not as people. Though it's true that people go to extremes to protect their dogs, risking almost certain death to go back for Weena would be absurd. This is less a Victorian opinion about women than a rational opinion about pets. I'm going to get letters from PETA for this one.

So yes, we can point out Wells' now-absurd opinions on many things, but this should not detract from our appreciation of the book. When reading something like this, we must live in the past and the present, appreciating the book in historical context while accepting its considerable flaws as time artifacts. Don't be postmodern; respect the artist.