SHADOWS OF A DIRE FUTURE: TIME TRAVEL AND SOCIAL REFORM IN CHARLES DICKENS’S A CHRISTMAS CAROL AND H. G. WELLS’S THE TIME MACHINE

Abstract

This article examines the probable influence of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol on Wells’s The Time Machine. While The Time Machineprovides a scientific justification for time travel, Wells utilises the supernatural and magical elements found in A Christmas Carol to make time travel seem plausible. Both texts connect time travel with the emphasis on social reform that persists throughout the Victorian era. The Time Machine transforms the themes and metaphors of A Christmas Carol in light of Wells’s understanding of evolutionary theory. The Time Machine might be read as a continuation of A Christmas Carol, warning what will happen if the social divisions Dickens highlights are not eradicated. Through Scrooge’s redemption and adoption of Christian paternalism, Dickens suggests the future is easy to change. For Wells in The Time Machine, however, the competing demands of collective reform and evolutionary competition make it more difficult to change the future.