Finally, whereas Victorian definitions of progress implicitly rely on a binary opposition of success and failure, Morley and Stevenson use Fortune’s Wheel to replace it with a definition of human development where both fortune and misfortune can co-exist without contradicting each other. In the 1880s and 1890s, the Wheel of Fortune could easily have been used as a portent of the apocalypse, suggesting as it does that decline is inevitable. Many critics of the day were already talking about society’s doomsday. The theory of ‘degeneration’ (Nordau) became popular, and inspired intellectuals to argue that society was living too comfortably. Early and mid-century progress had relaxed Britain, and it was therefore doomed to decline (Lankester 33).
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As the Time Traveller arrives in 802, 701 AD, Wells presents a dystopian future. The year itself expresses deterioration. The first half of the number of 802 decreases in the second half to 701; 8 becomes 7, 2 becomes 1. Moreover, the Time Traveller discovers that humanity’s technological advances subsequently made them complacent. The descendants of the human race, the Elois, have regressed from Victorian times and are ‘childlike’ (24). They only have the ‘intellectual level of one of our five year old children’ (25). Like Morley and Stevenson, Wells suggests that human progress is finite, and even does so by using cyclical imagery: the Time Machine’s movement through time is like the ‘the spoke of a wheel spinning’ (10). Yet whereas The Time Machine portrays a future where humankind ultimately decline, the Wheel of Fortune in Life’s Wheel and Prince Otto is not so pessimistic. It might incorporate decline and stagnation as an inevitability, but progression and success are also guaranteed by Fortune’s Wheel because it is forever …show more content…
Morley draws parallels with the “regnavi” position as Vera laments that ‘after the sunshine cometh the rain’ (129). Her use of the past tense to speak of any and all happiness reflects the position of “I have reigned”. Her movement past the zenith of Fortune is clearly expressed and, as she hurtles towards the “I am without reign” position, she postulates that ‘when I am old, I can think of the time when I was loved and wooed’ (113). Significantly too, even as the four shelves of Fortune are passed, Morley continues the novel. By Chapter Twenty-Four, Delawere has fled the country, Roy and Vera are reunited and Vera discovers she is in fact nobly born. Though she was adopted, she learns that she is still the daughter of a Duke and, by the novel’s conclusion, Morley reports that ‘the cloud had gone’ (288). The rotation of the wheel from “I shall reign” to “I am without reign” is not final. Life’s Wheel demonstrates that the Wheel of Fortune incorporates the possibility of renewed happiness even after misfortune. The binary opposition of success and failure is replaced with fluid movement between the two
As the Time Traveller arrives in 802, 701 AD, Wells presents a dystopian future. The year itself expresses deterioration. The first half of the number of 802 decreases in the second half to 701; 8 becomes 7, 2 becomes 1. Moreover, the Time Traveller discovers that humanity’s technological advances subsequently made them complacent. The descendants of the human race, the Elois, have regressed from Victorian times and are ‘childlike’ (24). They only have the ‘intellectual level of one of our five year old children’ (25). Like Morley and Stevenson, Wells suggests that human progress is finite, and even does so by using cyclical imagery: the Time Machine’s movement through time is like the ‘the spoke of a wheel spinning’ (10). Yet whereas The Time Machine portrays a future where humankind ultimately decline, the Wheel of Fortune in Life’s Wheel and Prince Otto is not so pessimistic. It might incorporate decline and stagnation as an inevitability, but progression and success are also guaranteed by Fortune’s Wheel because it is forever …show more content…
Morley draws parallels with the “regnavi” position as Vera laments that ‘after the sunshine cometh the rain’ (129). Her use of the past tense to speak of any and all happiness reflects the position of “I have reigned”. Her movement past the zenith of Fortune is clearly expressed and, as she hurtles towards the “I am without reign” position, she postulates that ‘when I am old, I can think of the time when I was loved and wooed’ (113). Significantly too, even as the four shelves of Fortune are passed, Morley continues the novel. By Chapter Twenty-Four, Delawere has fled the country, Roy and Vera are reunited and Vera discovers she is in fact nobly born. Though she was adopted, she learns that she is still the daughter of a Duke and, by the novel’s conclusion, Morley reports that ‘the cloud had gone’ (288). The rotation of the wheel from “I shall reign” to “I am without reign” is not final. Life’s Wheel demonstrates that the Wheel of Fortune incorporates the possibility of renewed happiness even after misfortune. The binary opposition of success and failure is replaced with fluid movement between the two