The Eloi and the Morlocks

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Mary Burgoyne

H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine presents a very interesting look at what our future could be. The time-traveler jumps thousands of years into the future to find two types of beings roaming the Earth, the Eloi and the Morlocks. While the time-traveler aligns himself with the Eloi, especially through his relationship with Weena, an eloi he rescues from drowning, readers may be confused as to which species/race they are supposed to express sympathy.
The Eloi are happy, carefree people who live above the earth’s surface, eating fruit and basking in the sun, while the Morlocks lurk in the underground and shadows, hiding from light and only venturing out of their dark habitats to capture and feed on the Eloi race. When presented in this way, the Morlocks appear to be the antagonistic race of this future world. The time-traveler expresses his disdain and hatred for the Morlock race as he fends them off coming out of the forest.
My wariness of the Eloi stems from the time-traveler’s description of saving Weena from drowning. He tells his dinner guests, “ The main current ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that none made the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little thing which was drowning before their eyes” (48. The apathy displayed by the Eloi or “the little people” reveals the race to be rather daft, inactive, and helpless. The nickname of “the little people” further emphasizes their lack of awareness and ability to bring about change in their surroundings. Even in his relationship with Weena, the time-traveler takes on a kind of father role as she follows him around throughout his exploration. Weena does not really possess any thoughts of her own but blindly follows the time-traveler, and throughout the book, it’s debatable whether Weena is a child, a woman, or some type of animal companion. The dependency of the Eloi frustrates me as these people seem to do nothing to fight against the Morlocks. In this state, they appear more like animals, and thus, position themselves as prey in the predator/prey relationship the time-traveler ultimately discovers to exist within this environment.
The time-traveler also goes on to explain, “The Upper-world people might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away. The two species that had resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down towards, or had already arrived at, an altogether new relationship” (67). The tables have turned, and the Morlocks appear to have assumed more power by capturing and feeding off the Eloi. What spurs this evolution or possibly revolution we will never know, but as a reader, I feel more inclined to sympathize or at least try to understand the Morlock’s cruel point of view because of the action and strategies they employ in their daily lives where I think the Eloi exercise none.


The Eloi and the Morlocks | English 355: The Other Victorians (georgetown.edu)