On The Theme Of Anomie In H.G.Wells’ Social Satires

Herbert George Wells is one of the most influential writers of the Edwardian Britain.His works not only obtain a high output,but also cover a wide range of fields,including science,literature,politics,history,biology and sociology.With his imaginative and scientific fantasy,Wells is regarded as "Shakespeare in the circle of science fiction",and wins the title of "Dickens’ heir" for his social novels that satirize social reality.He even got Guo Moruo’s high praise as "encyclopedic genius" for his above achievements plus other forward-looking creations worldwide.Wells’ social satire inherits the tradition of realistic novels in 19th-century,and uses realist creative techniques to create a series of social satirical novels from around 1900,depicting the social conditions of the transitional period in Britain,and describing many nobodies along with their sad and ridiculously bumpy journey.This article takes "anomie" in the sociological theory as the entrance,and uses the research method of close reading to deeply explore the four social novels:Love and Mr.Lewisham,Kipps,Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr.Polly.Based on four aspects:ecological anomie,economic anomie,educational anomie and moral anomie,it shows the writing of the social anomie of British industrial civilization during the transition period.It then analyzes the reasons of anomic writing from the three aspects of the influence of the age,family background and individual experience.Finally,it further investigates the author’s approaches to exploring a well-ordered society.Wells was born in a lower middle class bourgeois family with economic hardships.Under coincidence and self-effort,he received a limited primary education.At the age of fourteen,he left school under the pressure of earning a living and embarked on apprenticeship in pharmacy and cloth shop.At 18,he entered his dream university by accident,beginning to come into contact with scientific knowledge.After graduating from school,he became a science teacher there and began to write.These difficulties in his early life not only tempered his character,honed his will,but also provided a very rich original material for his future creations,especially social novels.In Wells’ words,the protagonists of almost all social novels are "victims of a lack of education".As a world power developed in the industrial revolution,Britain has been pursuing a series of social reforms since the establishment of the constitutional monarchy,and has fully developed domestic liberal capitalism,but at the same time exacerbated the economic anarchy and social poverty.The problems have changed dramatically in the political,economic,social and cultural fields of Britain.Under these circumstances,Wells inherited the fine traditions of realist novels,profoundly meditated on the problems of transitional society,showing thought-provoking philosophy and critical thinking.The writings of the anomic theme in Wells’ four social satires in the transitional society are mainly reflected in the four aspects of ecology,economy,education and morality.The first aspect is of ecological writing.From the late 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century,the United Kingdom was in the stage of rapid development of industrial civilization which brought unprecedented changes for the state of the natural environment,the linking between man and nature,and the relationship between people.Wells portrayed the scene of ecological anomie from three perspectives of the mismatched countryside,the unbalanced towns and the disordered cities.Secondly,industrial civilization has brought prosperity and a major change in capitalist production relations as well to Britain.Under this social background,economic relations have become complicated and utilitarian.Wells’ social satires have exposed the situation of economic anomie among the three aspects of fraudulent production,paradoxical circulation and conspicuous consumption.Thirdly,after the promulgation of the British Primary Education Act in 1870,the government began to establish public schools and gradually popularized primary education.However,those changes couldn’t conceal anomic status of education such as immature self-education,insufficient family educational tradition and vacant educational management among the country,which were reflected in the writings of Wells.The fourth aspect is in terms of morality.Influenced by the prevailing social ethos of mercantilism and utilitarianism,ethics and morality among people have declined and emotional relations have alienated.Wells demonstrates the current situation of moral anomie in the social context through three aspects:the indifferent family bond,utilitarian love and hypocritical friendship.It can be said that the writing of anomie in Wells’ social satires not only reflects the social conditions of the British in that transitional period,but also indicates that the old British social structure faces the risk of disintegration.Wells’ social satires were written in Edwardian era,which is a typical period of social transformation in British history.Under this background,the normative system and value system of the whole society have been impacted to varying degrees,and the social structure has taken on a state of anomie.How to realize the development of a well-ordered society is a problem that Wells has been exploring and striving for all his life.Wells’personal growth experience and the thoughts of characters in the novels,such as his reflection on scientific education,his exploration of Fabian socialism and his vision of integrating moral identity with social norms,all embody his desire and process of exploring a well-ordered society.In the reflection of science education,Wells is a "deviant traitor",who strives to get out of religious bondage,becomes a "lucky boy" having required science education though from the bottom of the society,and eventually becomes a celebrated "science fiction novelist" who reflects on the progress of science.In the exploration of Fabian socialism,Wells once joined the Fabian Society.With the stories from Lewisham’s fantasy,Masterman’s struggle to Ewart’s compromise,the writer shows the readers that Fabian socialists only hoped to compromise politically at that time,but did not show themselves from the aspects of economy,social renovation and future planning.Their resolutions and efforts have shown a kind of political fantasy,and his political reconstruction can only be done about it.In the vision of integrating moral identity and social norms,Wells finally turned to the way of exploring moral norms through the choice of Lewisham,the return of Kipps,George’s enlightenment and Polly’s redemption,so as to realize self-understanding and finally return to the spiritual development of virtue.In this series of social satires,Wells introduced the social anomie of the turn of the century in the United Kingdom in a full of ridiculous tone,and also expressed his own sorrowful connotation after the dramatic changes of the times.He creatively inherited the literary tradition of critical realism,exposed the dark side of the times,criticized the anomie reality in all fields of society,and presented the "anxiety" of that era together with contemporary writers.Wells does not pursue the exquisite beauty of the language expression like Henry James,but is faithful to the social reality,"pointing out the unpredictable and random nature of individual experiences",and conveying the realistic characteristics of the realist literary tradition.His greatest contribution is not to hammer out a solution for the social anomie,but to grasp the essence of "the heyday of Edwardian age".The anomic structure carefully constructed by Wells has a great literary and practical significance for the development of contemporary realism literature and the Chinese cultural construction in an era of rapid transformation.