1,052 mass shootings in 1,066 days. That is one of the recent statistics found on the increasing amount of mass shootings in the United States. Aside from the political debate, there is no denying that these shootings prove that us Americans are slowly becoming defenseless against ourselves. Arnold Toynbee warned of this dangerous situation years ago in his statement on his dim view of the human race, which stressed that “civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” Furthermore, this view can be seen in H.G. Wells’ science fiction novel The Time Traveler and Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Toynbee Convector.” By examining the dystopian characteristics in the two pieces of work, a reader will find that Arnold Toynbee’s observations prove
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The Time Traveler notices that there is no hardship or violence in this future civilization; everyone, especially the Eloi, is happy all the time. But, this falls into one of the main characteristics of dystopian civilizations: a dumbed down, complaint population. The Time Traveler described the Eloi right away as “on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children” (39). The Eloi do not fight back against the norms and do not care for each other. In one instance, Weena, an Eloi, is drowning in front of everyone but no one does anything because they are too weak, lazy, and inconsiderate. Luckily, the Time Traveler saves her from dying. Not only do they ignore death, but they also are oblivious to the harm that the Morlocks are imposing on their own civilization and its future. By being uneducated and uninterested in others, the Eloi are essentially killing themselves. According to Toynbee’s theory, the Time Traveler is witnessing a society in decline because it is killing itself from within. There is no actual suicide, but the stupidity and carelessness of the people has gotten severe enough to call those qualities self-inflicted wounds on the attempted …show more content…
The short story is centered around this man who creates a fake time machine and makes up a whole story about his trip into the future. In this carefully plotted hoax, the main character claims that the future holds a utopia. When he reveals to the people that he has been lying, he tells them that he did it not only to draw attention, but also to create a new sense of hope for himself. Stiles wants to believe that there can be a great society, unlike the one he is living in. By creating such an elaborate hoax of future civilization, the man is trying to force himself to feel a part of that utopia. But, the only way he can truly find happiness in that type of society was death, so he enters the time machine and completes his mission: “The old man had, indeed, gone back in time, and its name was death. He was traveling in the past now, forever” (9). Stiles decides to kill himself because he hates life so much and wants to live in a futuristic society. Unfortunately, Craig Bennett Stiles proves Arnold Toynbee’s statement by showing that an attempted utopia will always lead to destruction from within by killing
The Time Traveler notices that there is no hardship or violence in this future civilization; everyone, especially the Eloi, is happy all the time. But, this falls into one of the main characteristics of dystopian civilizations: a dumbed down, complaint population. The Time Traveler described the Eloi right away as “on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children” (39). The Eloi do not fight back against the norms and do not care for each other. In one instance, Weena, an Eloi, is drowning in front of everyone but no one does anything because they are too weak, lazy, and inconsiderate. Luckily, the Time Traveler saves her from dying. Not only do they ignore death, but they also are oblivious to the harm that the Morlocks are imposing on their own civilization and its future. By being uneducated and uninterested in others, the Eloi are essentially killing themselves. According to Toynbee’s theory, the Time Traveler is witnessing a society in decline because it is killing itself from within. There is no actual suicide, but the stupidity and carelessness of the people has gotten severe enough to call those qualities self-inflicted wounds on the attempted …show more content…
The short story is centered around this man who creates a fake time machine and makes up a whole story about his trip into the future. In this carefully plotted hoax, the main character claims that the future holds a utopia. When he reveals to the people that he has been lying, he tells them that he did it not only to draw attention, but also to create a new sense of hope for himself. Stiles wants to believe that there can be a great society, unlike the one he is living in. By creating such an elaborate hoax of future civilization, the man is trying to force himself to feel a part of that utopia. But, the only way he can truly find happiness in that type of society was death, so he enters the time machine and completes his mission: “The old man had, indeed, gone back in time, and its name was death. He was traveling in the past now, forever” (9). Stiles decides to kill himself because he hates life so much and wants to live in a futuristic society. Unfortunately, Craig Bennett Stiles proves Arnold Toynbee’s statement by showing that an attempted utopia will always lead to destruction from within by killing