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WHY IS H.G. WELLS CONSIDERED AS THE FATHER OF THE SCIENCE FICTION?

WHY IS H.G. WELLS CONSIDERED AS THE FATHER OF THE SCIENCE FICTION?

Although Herbert George Wells was born in the year 1866, more than a hundred years ago, he is recognized for his works in the scope of science fiction, and even more than that, he is considered as a “Prophet” owing to the fact that, in some of his works and novels, he predicted technologies that were not even theories during the time these stories were written. H.G. Wells had an astounding talent to look beyond the time and see the future in a unique way, a way he attempted to portrait to the generation of those years in the past, a way that until now has a remarkable persistence and validity.  The fact that he belonged to a humble social position never implied a barrier for him to develop his innate aptitudes, on the contrary, this apparently handicap signified for him a new challenge against the life and the right opportunity to demonstrate to himself that he was capable to create gold out of stones. We will briefly analyze the life of this so-called “Man Who Invented Tomorrow”, besides we will also define what the science fiction genre is, all this procedures are meant for a more accurate understanding of all the edges that converged and gave as a final result the “Father of Science Fiction”.

Herbert George Wells was born on September 21^st, 1866 in Bromley, county of Kent, England and died on August 13^th, 1946. Although he wrote great works in many other genres such as novels, history, politics and social matters; he is best known for his work in the science fiction genre. Together with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsbabk, Wells is considered as the “Father of the Science Fiction”. 

His father was a domestic gardener, shopkeeper and cricket player, three jobs may seem too much for anybody; however, the truth is that merely from this latter activity he received a decent wage, wage that constituted the main income for this lower middle class family. Moreover, due to the poor economic situation that the family was undergoing, his mother saw herself in the need of a job; consequently she found the most emblematic job for women in those years: domestic servant.

In the year 1874, when Wells was 8 years old, he suffered an apparently devastating accident which confined him to be in bed for a long time because his leg was broken; apparently since to pass the time in a not unexciting way, the little Wells started to read books from the local library, books that were borrowed for him by his caring father. We can state that since this moment Wells became committed to the other worlds and dimensions, and his aspiration to write started to be more and more powerful, as a result he entered to a writing academy. Nevertheless, owing to the tragic fact that his sportive father suffered an unexpected and unwanted accident which caused the fracture of his thigh, this vigorous father was unable to continue playing cricket and hence receiving money from that occupation. As a result the income at home was truly low, and Herbert had not only to leave his writing academy, but also he and his brothers were forced by the situation to start working in different places and occupations at a very early stage of their lives. Her mother, who had happily stopped working for a few years, started to work again this time as a lady’s maid in a house that had a well provided library. Luckily, in this house Herbert had access to works like the Republic by Plato and the Utopia by More. Years later, he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science, where he was one of the founders of The Science School Journal, a school magazine, where he published his novel “The Time Machine” under the title “The Chronic Argonauts”. We can also state that he was not only a writer, and as a method of self-expression, Wells sketched (made drawings) about different topics, such as politics, current literature, and romantic interests.

Besides, in the year 1891 he married his cousin Isabel Mary Wells; however, he left her in 1894 for one of his students, Amy Catherine Robbins, whom he married in 1895, he had 2 sons with Amy; nevertheless,  he also had many other love affairs with about 7 other women.

Our idealist young Wells had a Socialist heart, this sympathy was the motor that led him to join the Labor Party of UK in 1922. Moreover, he had the idea of a “World State” (pure socialism) in this vision of the society people is able to progress by means of merit rather than birth, he was against the Nationalism, though. He expressed many times that he supported the WWI, this is not bizarre if we consider the fact that he also supported sterilization for people with diseases, abortion, infanticide, suicide, and euthanasia for the “inferior”, for the misshapen, the mentally ill, the alcoholic, the criminal, and even for the defenseless. Wells also favored the killing of not only individuals but also of a complete race, this is something he called “Natural Selection” utilizing the Darwinian terminology.

Although all these features may seem to be radical, and in fact they are, he also suggested that a democracy by electoral representation was much more efficient than the imperialism, further, he considered Stalin as an honest and fair leader. Because of these facts mentioned above many people started to criticize him, and consequently his popularity decreased among the people who supported him in the old days, and this fact, together with his frustrated effort to prevent WWII in the League of Nations led him to a depressive period in his life: “The period of Frustration”, period in which he was not supported by any god or goddess because he did not have any religious orientation. Even though he accepted that anyone can feel free to choose the best way to feel close to any religion and also to feel the presence of God. This depressive state of mind took Wells to a weakness that was increasingly dangerous for his career, weakness that was reflected in his works and also in his health, we can see this in the fact that he suffered of diabetes. Our now weak man was being defeated by the lack of care coming from the society, but once more he stayed strong and stayed up facing the life and created a charity organization aimed to help people who suffer diabetes. The name of this organization is “Diabetes UK” and it continues its activity until the current days. Although years later Wells died (under “not specified” causes), he continues alive in the blood of the beneficiaries of his charity and also in the hearts and minds of his devoted readers that still nowadays believe that his most extravagant “prophecies” will come true one day, sooner or later.

            Wells was a genius of the Science Fiction genre, but what does this statement involve? What do we mean when we talk about Science Fiction? We may imagine a setting in the future, in an alternative moment of the history, or in the outer space where the characters coexist with advanced technologies, technologies and machineries that many times contradict the laws of physics, the laws of nature, and sometimes contradict the life itself in an amazing way that leads our minds to unexpected situations in impossible worlds. Wells was an expert in creating this parallel dimensions and a mastermind in make us believe and feel every single atom of his supernatural worlds.

            This worlds shaped by his own hands were unique and amazing, we can refer to the case of “The island of Dr. Moreau”, in which a mad doctor and scientist on a remote island created hybrid beings composed of human and animals, and the unfortunate witness (Prendick) of this eccentric reality is finally taken by this new world order and when he returns to the “civilized society” of London he finds himself a stranger in there and needs to go to live in an isolated place away from the people. Doctor Moreau is unfortunately assassinated by a Puma- woman he created, but where is the fantastic feature in this story? It was not until the year 1953, that two scientists proved that DNA was able to be used in order to trespass genetic information, this became the starting point of the genetic engineering; nonetheless, Wells had predicted this decades before.

We can also refer to the work called The War of the Worlds, in which creatures that look like octopuses coming from the planet Mars come to the Earth and attack humans by creating huge machines shaped as tripods, this machineries almost exterminate the human race with his most powerful weapon: rays that dissolve people, where have we heard something like this? Let us state that this book was written in the year 1898 and it was not until 1917 that Albert Einstein in his Quantum Theory of Radiation, showed to the world that something called laser could be possible, but only in the year 1928 the laser was created. Wells also talks about biological war in this book, biological war that nowadays constitutes one of the biggest fears of humankind.

In the year 1901, Wells, wrote the novel “The first men on the Moon”, there is no need to say that in this book he foretold a lunar landing, and these first men on the Moon (two odd scientists) found Moon inhabitants, beings called “Selenites” organized in a prolific civilization. The Apollo XI mission, 68 years after this book was written, reached the lunar surface.

“Men like Gods” is a story in which a journalist together with other Englishmen are unintentionally transported to a parallel reality: the world of Utopia, which is a sort of advanced Earth with unbelievably advanced means of communication, such as wireless telephones and voice mails, does this sound familiar to us? The first email was sent almost 50 years after this book was published.

Wells wrote more than 100 works, about a fifty percent of them were science fiction works, but in this opportunity we will only refer to just one more of his works, this is “The invisible man” the story deals about a scientist who theorizes that if a person’s refractive index is modified to the exact index of the air and his/her body does not absorb the reflect of light or “photons”, the result will be that this human being will be invisible. Luckily Mr. Griffin, our protagonist, success in this project and he carries out this modus operandi on himself, unfortunately the unexpected issue appears on the story, and our underprivileged  scientist cannot become visible again, and because of this failure he becomes mentally insane. Extraordinarily, in the last 10 years a Japanese scientist is working on a coat of invisibility, the one who wears this coat becomes not even traceable for radars, he has been successful, but this current Japanese Mr Griffin is trying to expand his discovery and make it work even with warplanes... to which extent the fiction can be real? And to which extent these new technologies will be used in a constructive way and not for damaging ourselves?

In sum, we can state that the so-called “Man Who Invented Tomorrow” had an amazing ability to look beyond the horizon of the time, and he turned his disadvantage of being a citizen of the lower-middle English class into a challenge which was far exceeded in his successful career. Wells twisted and shaped a literature genre that nowadays generates not only great commotion, but also strong feelings of abstraction in the ones who realise that more than a hundred years ago this former humble man created a new world order, a reality that a century ago was impossible to come true, the reality within which we live nowadays. In this point becomes obvious the title he received: “Father of the Science Fiction”.

The role of communication technologies in English language teaching

In the last decades, the process of globalization has meant a complete change in the lives of billions of people. Regarding to these transformations, we can state that owing to the fact that technology has become part of the daily life, to some extent we are dependant on these technologies, in particular on the Information Technologies (ITs). Moreover, in the educative scope, we must declare that the ITs represent a strong help for the teachers to find new, more attractive and more meaningful materials; and being even more specific, we can refer to the English language teaching, one of the most beneficiated areas on the subject of the ITs usage. Nevertheless, if used wrongly, the ITs  may be useless or even harmful for the users. Now, we will discuss about the role of the ITs in the English language teaching.

On the one hand, we can affirm that even when possessing knowledge has always been an important tool for everybody all along the ages, the type of knowledge has changed, and it is still and continuosly varying; and the knowledge we deal with nowadays is of an important size. We, as English language teachers must show and teach the world’s reality, through a different glass to the students, illustrate the truth about the world by means of the English language. Giving the learners all the knowledge is impossible; however, giving them the tools for them to know the humanity by themselves is not unattainable, and the tool we are referring to is the English language. Fortunately, currently we can make use of the ITs, and get to the knowledge itself easily, for example, with the use of internet we can have an effortless access to updated information, we are also able to communicate with English native speakers online, who can help us to improve our own skills and also who can be part of an interactive school lesson via Skype, for instance. This is obviously motivating for the students who will be more proactive to learn English and see a real application of it, owing to the fact that nowadays, most of the public system students are unable to see a real and useful application of English in their lives. We can also have access to English non native speakers of different cultures and get to the cultural knowledge they have in an extremely easy way, having access to the source of knowledge itself. These characteristics of the ITs if used appropriately can help us to create an amusing learning environment.

On the other hand, if the Its are misused, or if the teacher does not know how to use them in an appropriate way, or if the teacher is not proactive to use technologies in large variety of activities, they will be useless. It is commonly seen in public schools, that classrooms are well equipped with different kind of IT resources, such as TVs, Radios, Computers with internet connection, Data Projectors, and so on; nonetheless, the teachers do not use them accurately, because of several reasons, such as: they do not know how to use them, they feel uncomfortable using “new” things, students may get distracted from the real contents of a class, unfortunately all these reasons are only excuses because a good professor, with a trained classroom management will know how to deal with these factors and make of a normal and boring class, something amusing, motivating and meaningful. However, it is also important to know how to deal with the technologies due to the fact that sometimes we are not aware of the dangers they involve, it is responsibility of the teacher to be aware of this and also to teach the students to be responsible with the usage of these technologies.

In sum, we can state that the globalization is being an involving process which has allowed us to get to the knowledge in an easy way. We, as English language teachers, have the responsibility to use these ITs in a proper way, so as to engage our students with our lessons and also to give them the tools for them to know their reality. Besides, we also have the responsibility to teach them to be conscious about the right use of these technologies, for them not to be in danger of being dependant on these for their lives. We as English language teachers, must be prepared for both knowing these technologies and also for showing our learners the right path for their success in a responsible way.

Comparison between the Novel and the Movie

In the last years, it has become really popular the idea to adapt books into movies. However, this transformation may alter the original work, and the latter might be sometimes totally different and fictitious. In this opportunity, we will compare the similarities and differences between the novel and the movie of the work “Gulliver’s travels” written by Jonathan Swift in the year 1726 and the movie directed by Rob Letterman, broadcasted in the year 2010.

On the one hand, we can find that both the book and the movie start with a description and brief outline about the life of the protagonist before the voyages. Besides, we can also state that the main character’s ship wrecks, and then he awakes finding himself as a prisoner of small people from a country called Lilliput, that has a rival and neighbor country called Blefuscu. Moreover, we can also declare that another similarity is the fact  that the protagonist, after showing that he is a well-mannered man, he is given residence in Lilliput, and also becomes very close to the court of the country.

On the other hand, we can state that even though there are some similarities, there are also some important differences, for instance the name of the protagonist is different, due to the fact that in the novel it is Lemuel Gulliver, while in the film it is Jack Black. Moreover, we can express that the protagonist of the book is an English doctor (surgeon), who then becomes a Captain of a ship, a respectable and confident man; nonetheless, the main character of the movie is an American citizen from New York, who works in a newspaper as mailman, a shy and unsure man. Apart from this, we can also say that the book takes place around the year 1700, however the movie was carried out in the current times. Besides, the original work includes four voyages (“A Voyage to Lilliput and Blefuscu”, “A Voyage to Brobdingnag”, “A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan”, and “A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms”) while the movie only considers only two voyages (Lilliput and Brobdingnag). Additionally, we can say that the novel is a satire to the society of that age, while the movie is a comedy; this shows an opposite perspective between the two works.

In sum, we can conclude that even though some literary works can be adapted and transformed into a movie, the resultant work may have some similarities regarding to the background; nevertheless, some key aspects of it will vary, as we have seen in this comparison between the novel and the film of Gulliver’s Travels. Consequently, it is important to trust not only the modified and adapted version of a literary work, but to go to the actual source of it, so as to value its richness and know the real intentions (sometimes camouflaged) behind it.

Gulliver's Travels_The Movie

Gulliver’s Travels is a movie directed by Rob Letterman in the year 2010, it was based on the homonym novel previously published in 1726.

This film was ambiented in the Contemporary Ages, its cast is composed by the following characters:   Jack Black (Protagonist), Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate y Amanda Peet as Darcy Silver. This production opened its premiere on December 25^th, 2010.

In New York, Gulliver decided to talk to Darcy Silverman, who was a journalist of a famous newspaper. Gulliver told her that he could write a report on his “travels” around the world, mentioning that his main dream was to become a writer. After that, a new report was plagiarized of different publications on internet, and in the next day, astonished by Gulliver`s work, Darcy asked him to visit “The Bermudas Triangle” so as to investigate about  a “Vessel Legend”  in which these ship disappeared in a mysterious way from that place.

Fortunately, Gulliver arrived to a different place called “Lilliput”. At the beginning, Gulliver was considered as an enemy by the Lilliputian people, but after rescuing their King from a fire, he was considered as a “hero” and treated in a very gentle way by the Lilliputians: Gulliver who was thought to be the president of the USA; however, then he was discovered to be a liar and attempted to go back home in his already repaired ship.

When trying to come back home, his ship wrecked on the ocean, and he was taken as a prisoner by a giant girl in an unknown land, and had to live in a doll house. His best friend from Lilliput helped him to escape form that place, and when he was back to Lilliput he helped the Lilliputians and the Blefuscutian to have a peace agreement.

Gulliver's Travels_The Book

Gulliver’s Travels is a novel written by Jonathan Swift. It was published in 1726. Usually, it has been considered as an adventure story for children, but it really was a satire to the society and to the human quality. This criticism was hidden and camouflaged behind an innocent story about travels across colorful lands.

The protagonist is the captain Lemuel Gulliver, who finds himself in paradoxical situations. First, he is a giant among dwarves, then he is a dwarf among giants, and finally he is ashamed about his human condition in a land ruled and populated by wise horses, whose features are extremely human and thus, the horses do not trust the humans.

This work is considered as a classic work of world literature, and it has inspired many adaptations and versions. The book became famous immediately. In the year 1726 John Gay (an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club) told Swift “you are universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery”. This book has never stopped being printed.

Rob Letterman_the movie's director

Rob Letterman, is an American film director, writer and voice actor.

Before Letterman's filmic subjects took him into outer space with Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), he was taken underwater, having directed and written DreamWorks Animation's 2004 Academy Award-nominated hit comedy Shark Tale, starring Will Smith, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie and Jack Black.[1] His writing efforts on the film also netted him an Annie nomination.

Prior to Letterman's joining DreamWorks Animation, he directed the short film Los Gringos, which was accepted at 2000's Sundance Film Festival.

In 2010 Letterman directed the live-action film Gulliver's Travels, starring Jack Black in the lead role.[2]

Letterman was born in Hawaii. Attended Mid-Pacific Institute, USC.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Letterman

Jonathan Swift_the book's writer

Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

He is remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier—or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift