In this collection of short stories H.G. Wells explores new perspectives in his analysis of human society. By means of extending his stories and projecting them both into the distant evolutionary past as well as the future, he reveals a preoccupation with time and with evolutionary processes. These techniques will be evident as well in novels such as “The Time Machine” and “In the Days to Come”, in which it is postulated that there is a fundamental unity in processes that will lead to natural consequences that are anticipated from the very beginning. Rather than conceive of evolution as a directed movement towards greater mastery and development, as was implicit in a doctrine such as Positivism, it is revealed that evolution is curiously circular. The eternal cycle of conflict and stress will play themselves out in a group dynamics in which class consciousness will slowly come into play, thus curiously leading to new cycles of exploitation that are part of the natural order. For all the conceits of civilization, humanity is never able to completely escape this order, as will be evident by these stories.
In the first case, we are projected into the distant evolutionary past, to a time in which humanity existed in a primitive form, in a virginal European landscape fifty thousand years ago. As the title indicates, it is “A Story of the Stone Age”, before the advent of technology and, indeed, settled life. This story is structured as struggle for succession, in which a leader, the grizzled Uya the Cunning, will be challenged by the younger Ugh-lomi, thus making evident pressures that will reveal the basis for the conflictive social dynamics that continue to characterize human society.
This group of hunters lives in a much different landscape than that which is apparent in modern days. Although they appear to be situated in a primordial English landscape, the features seem to echo more closely those of a vast western landscape, in which plains alternate with hills and mountains. There are mastodons, tigers, bears and horses inhabiting this landscape, as well as monkeys, and while these might suggest at first glance an African savannah, the sheer variety of the landscape and the species indicate a conflation of different habitats, whereby it will be apparent that this is a region subject to much more variation in temperature. Indeed, it is stated that the tribe is the first to reach this northern latitude, and is thus in the position of pioneering the settlement of this region.
The fact that these are primordial humans is revealed in the description of their physical features. As stated in the stories, “They were narrow in the loins and long in the arms. And their ears had no lobes, and had little pointed tips, a thing that still, in rare instances, survives. Stark-naked vivid little gypsies, as active as monkeys and as full of chatter, though a little wanting in words.” (p. 291). They lack not only words but also clothing, although they are familiar with the use of weapons that consist of sticks and antlers, among other items. They are primitive, although they do have a conception of order and society that seems to be grounded in a warrior ethic. Their leader is one who exhibits hunting prowess, and as a consequence, has access to several females, in the manner of a dominant pack leader who controls through the use of fear. It is a primordial society that stresses valor and cunning as well, and these are made evident in continual combat displays, something that will become evident as well in the description of the workers in the subsequent story of Wells set in the future, in which that working class will engage in frequent combats to maintain a hierarchy. Thus, we may say that we have a primordial society in the Stone Age story that is grounded in a pack mentality of dominance and survival.
The leader, once again, has privileges that do not accrue to other members of the pack. Rituals dictate that the lead needs to organize and direct the daily hunts, and that the leader obtains the choicest cuts of meat, but the leader also is able to distribute the rest of the food resources according to a hierarchy, one which is enforced by power and brute display. It is in this circumstance that we may understand that the leader also has his pick of mates among the tribe, and that these “wives” serve as an emblem of power. The favored wife of the moment wears a necklace of shells, and the leader himself has a special weapon consisting of a set of antlers. These are objects that are invested with immense symbolic power.
It is curious in this story that the primordial beings are so lacking in language. They can communicate with basic words, but in a curious reversal that heightens the ironic potential of the story, it is the animals that appear to have a much more developed vocabulary. It is the animals that can speak in complete sentences, such as the squirrel that says to the woman Eudena “What are you doing here (…) away from the other men beasts?” (p. 292). The position of the primitive tribe appears to be much close to that of the other beasts and, indeed, by virtue of their limited access to language, is subordinated to that of the other animals.
There is a melodramatic rivalry in which Eudena will serve as the object of dispute between the leader, Uya the Cunning, and the young man-in-waiting, Ugh-lomi. They will both pursue her out to the wilderness, after she has fled from the tribe, and both she and her young lover will escape, setting off as pioneers in a story that will stress their vulnerability in the face of the dangers posed by this environment. The pair seems to communicate in a primitive and compressed fashion, with words that frequently struggle to capture the concepts they wish to convey. They are barely verbal, much less so than the animals that surround them, and this accentuates their isolation because, although they are together, they lack the full comforts of domesticity that language and a suitable rhetoric of communication enable. As an example, at a future moment when there are in a cave pondering how to defend themselves from an attack by bears, the stark and simplified form of language they use becomes evident: “Presently she put forth her hand timidly and touched him, and made the guttural sound that was his name. He turned over and raised himself on his arm. His face was pale, like the face of one who is afraid. He looked at her steadfastly for a moment, and then suddenly he laughed. ‘Waugh!” he said exultantly. ‘Waugh!’ said she – a simple but expressive conversation.” (p. 306). In the same fashion, after the couple in H.W. Wells’ subsequent story of the future, find themselves living in a state of despair at the degree of labor and exploitation they encounter as members of the working classes, they are also reduced to a pre-verbal state of communication, one that is dictated by exhaustion and despair.
There will ensue a narrative of compressed evolution that is punctuated by many firsts. In the midst of play, Ugh-lomi will manage to insert a stick into the hole of a rock, thus inventing what will be termed in the story the “first axe”. In such primitive circumstances as theirs, in which every day is a fight for survival, a situation rendered more precarious by the new threats they will encounter, these innovations are a much needed survival tool that will help to compensate for their vulnerabilities. As ever, they are grounded in Ugh-lomi’s identity as a warrior, and his conception of life as an eternal combat for survival, a combat that is not masked with social niceties and a language of paternalism as will be the case in the subsequent story about a pair in the future. Indeed, there are many elements that seem to be much closer to the surface, and in the Stone Age, these humans have an appreciation for the value of symbolic power. This is a constant in human consciousness, and in the case of these Stone Age people, it is translated into a catalogue of totemic import, in a way which seems to parallel the belief systems of primitive, non-Western cultures in the nineteenth century of Wells’ conception, and the twenty-first century of his subsequent story, where the laboring classes wear blue to mark them as separate from the other social classes. Symbolism is tied to a scheme of perceptual reality and to identity, for it serves as the projection of human consciousness on our surroundings in a way which constitutes an alternative, more vivid and, frequently, more visceral mode of perception. It is also substantially pre-verbal, and this Stone Age couple, as are all the primordial humans in that narrative, are little removed from that stage of human development. The full symbolic import of the axe will not be grasped until it is first processed subconsciously by the warrior, thus signaling the way in which conceptual barriers are broken in the same way in which the blue clothing of the working classes will indicate the truth for the future couple in Wells’ subsequent story, a story in which they will descend into a vivid struggle for survival.
The male, Ugh-lomi, as all males in this hunter-gatherer tribe of the past, is a warrior who is aware of the importance of symbolism. He relies on unspoken forms of communication, on gestures, on visual signs, on patterns and on sensory clues, and his repertoire of culture signals is all the more vivid. For example, he is conscious of the fact that the “death word” has been used against him, and this seems to weigh heavily on him, as a reminder, perhaps, of the indignity of having been excluded and hunted by his former tribe. He is also obsessed by dreams in which he fights with his rival: “Whenever he dozed, his spirit went abroad, and straightaway met with the spirit of Uya, and they fought. And always Ugh-lomi was paralyzed so that he could not smite nor run, and then he would awake suddenly.” (p. 299). If dreams are the conduit to the subconscious, then these dreams take on a concrete form that impels him to make use of the discoveries he has made, in particular, that involving his use of the axe, which opens up new possibilities. In a subsequent moment he will imagine using this weapon, one which by its novelty will break with the perceptual barriers that had hindered him, and allow him to conceive of the possibility of a positive resolution: “And in their sleep Uya’s spirit came again, and suddenly, while Ugh-lomi was trying to fight vainly, the foolish flint on the stick came into his hand, and he struck Uya with it, and behold! It killed him.” (p. 300). He has now internalized the possibilities open to him by this new weapon, and because he is burdened by the weight of these dreams, he bids leave to return in order to kill his rival, which he does.
This narrative of compressed evolution will be punctuated by other firsts in addition to the invention of the first axe. For example, other innovations will include the use of this weapon to repel a bear attack, and the conceptualization of new strategies to hunt larger animals that had up to this point been outside the scope of human endeavor. The existence of this couple will be punctuated by a series of new and exciting possibilities that one imagines arose slowly and serendipitously during a time scale of thousands of years, and not necessarily within the lifespan of one primitive human being. It is a form of accelerated evolution that is akin to the launching of a rock from a hillside, one that will trigger a landslide that will bring about entirely new transformative possibilities that will lead, eventually, to the massive cities of the future, in a social landscape that will incorporate verticality and distance as part of a scheme of hierarchy. If a hillside allows for the release of kinetic energy, so these processes of social evolution will build up a form of energy that will be harnessed in many ways, and will lead to instabilities that will form part of the very framework of human (and evolutionary) society.
This discovery of kinetic energy begins innocently enough, in the midst of play. Ugh-lomi and his companion are playing with flints while sheltered on a ledge, and will suddenly take to launching these off into the distance, rather than hurling them as projectiles against prey that they are hunting. This will lead to a game that will saturate their imagination: “They spent all the morning dropping stones from the ledge, and in the afternoon they discovered this new and interesting pastimes was also possible form the cliff-brow. The next day they had forgotten this delight. Or, at least, it seemed they had forgotten.” (p. 300). From such an innocuous activity the seeds will be planted for a new conquest, a new tool for survival that they will apply in their struggle against the bears that will confront them.
Another first that will be noteworthy involves Ugh-lomi’s ride on the horses. This moment is one that begins innocently enough, although it is invested with pathos and social criticism, for it harbors within it the seeds of a form of enslavement that will be inherent in domestication. This serves to signal, once again, Wells’ preoccupation with evolutionary pressures in which predation and exploitation are serves as the fundamental aspects of history. As expressed in the story, “And in those days man seemed a harmless thing enough. No whisper of prophetic intelligence told the species of the terrible slavery that was to come, of the whip and spur and bearing-rein, the clumsy load and the slippery street, the insufficient food, and the knacker’s yard, that was to replace the wide grass-land and the freedom of the earth.” (p. 310). The ride will incorporate an element of adventure and novelty that will serve as an entertaining episode, elements that punctuate all of the Wells’ fiction regularly. It will also serve as a convenient narrative device to return his protagonist to the tribe that had excluded him, where he will find their circumstances much changed, afflicted as they are by a new threat.
It seems as if, during the intervening period in which Ugh-lomi and Eudena have been absent, a lion has arrived to prey on his tribe. As is evident to the warrior, “…it was certain that there were fewer. The men might be away, but there were fewer women and children. He gave the shout of home-coming. His quarrel had been with Uya and Wau – not with the others. ‘Children of Uya!’ he cried. They answered with his name, a little fearfully because of the strange way he had come.” (p. 316). The tribe is now in a fearful state, for not only are they being preyed upon by a lion, but their fears are not being manipulated by an old and bitter woman, the first wife of Uya the slain leader, who has convinced the tribe that Ugh-lomi is the cause of the lion’s wrath. Thus, he now faces a new threat, one that derives not from the landscape or from unfamiliar animals, but from a cunning adversary who will marshal the forces of the tribe to renew their pursuit of him and his lover. Pursuit and the hunt will always serve as indicators of vulnerability in these evolutionary tales in which predators, whether they take the form of a grizzled leader or a bitter old woman or, in the case of Wells’ subsequent story, of a jilted fiancé, reenact a melodramatic spectacle of amorous rivals who interfere with the achievement of domestic bliss and with the possibilities for reproduction and survival.
Under the incitation of this old woman, one who has lost her own reproductive powers but who nonetheless has achieved a new form of authority as the figure who is most able to lend ideological coherence to the situation of vulnerability of this tribe (thus giving birth to a new outlook that harmonizes and directs the activities of the social unit), the warriors of the tribe are sent out to capture Ugh-lomi and his bride, Eudena. Their capture and death is necessary for it is conceived as a way of protecting the survival of the group, a survival which is rendered all the more vivid by the disappearance of the children. As described in the story, “So the old lion waxed fat and thanked heaven for the kindly race of men. Two of the children and a youth died while the moon was still new, and then it was the shriveled old fire minder first bethought herself in a dream of Eudena and Ugh-lomi, and of the way Uya had been slain.” (p. 318). The old woman is now a surrogate mother, competing against Eudena for the survival of the family, and struggling to achieve a form of renewal and a state of continued protection, especially now that the leader of the tribe has been killed. These group dynamics in which an older generation resists the subversive actions of the younger individuals who incorporate a vitality that is missing otherwise, is a recurring element in these evolutionary dramas. The young lovers represent rival social units that are in control of productive elements that the older generation lacks, namely, the ability to procreate and give rise to new families and, possibly, competing social units. The procreative fecundity of the young must be countered with the institutional and ideological fecundity of the older generations, specifically in this story, with the cunning of the old woman.
In the concluding episode of this story, in which the events seem to proceed in an accelerated fashion, a hunting party is sent out and manages to capture Eudena, but fails to kill Ugh-lomi or, indeed, to find him. However, she is brought back and in a terrible confrontation that serves to assert a certain form of social hierarchy that had been disrupted by the pair of fleeing lovers, Eudena is beaten and insulted. For this, the old woman uses all of the ideological tools at her disposal, and these include, first and foremost, language: “The old woman had more words than any in the tribe. And her talk was a terrible thing to hear. Sometimes she screamed and moaned incoherently, and sometimes the shape of her guttural cries was the mere phantom of thoughts. But she conveyed to Eudena, nevertheless, much of the things that were yet to come, of the Lion and of the torment he would do her.” (p. 320). Language, thus, is also a form of productivity, and she makes use of this ability in a display with her rival, the much younger Eudena who had been slated to become the old leader’s newest wife, but has escaped the channels of authority and procreation.
Eudena is tied to a tree and awaits the arrival of the lion, while the rest of the tribe celebrates on the outskirts, awaiting as they are a form of symbolic deliverance. The sacrifice will serve, after all, to consummate a failed marriage, for the lion is thought to hold the spirit of the failed leader, Uya the Cunning, who had been killed by Eudena’s lover, Ugh-lomi. As with a typical Victorian novel of the period in which Wells was writing, a story will conclude with a marriage that will be consummated, thus signaling the harnessing of the productive energies of the period towards a conservation of the prevailing social order. However, this outcome is to be frustrated once again in this story.
While waiting, Eudena will suddenly note the arrival of another entity. Expecting it to be the lion, she will be surprised to discover Ugh-lomi, her lover, in a wounded state after having killed the lion. His arrival is noteworthy not only because it is unexpected, but because it signals a new first in this story of firsts, in which a man is able to kill a lion. As noted in the text, “All his body was covered with dark smears. She saw he was dragging his legs, and that he gripped his axe, the first axe, in one hand. In another moment he had struggled into the position of all fours, and had staggered over to her. ‘The lion,’ he said in a strange mingling of exultation and anguish. ‘Wau! – I have slain a lion. With my own hand. Even as I slew the great bear.’ He moved to emphasise his words, and suddenly broke off with a faint cry.”(p. 323). The imagery of this scene, as well as the words, is powerfully suggestive of a form of birth, because not only has the warrior Ugh-lomi managed to save his lover Eudena, he did so by confronting a lion which wounded him deeply, leaving him smeared in blood and weak on all fours, as if he himself had given birth. While he is still carrying his axe, a virile phallic symbol, it is still nonetheless noteworthy that he has lost his spear, a similar phallic symbol, which he has plunged into the lion and been unable to withdraw. Thus, his encounter with the lion was both a manly act of vanquishment of a threat as well as a fertile act in which he himself has been bloodied and lamed, and will need to recuperate in a hidden and vulnerable state while his lover, Eudena, obtains food for him.
In the end, there ensues a ritual in which the tribe celebrates the apparent appeasement of the lion, without being aware of the continued survival of the pair of lovers nor of the death of the lion. It is in this circumstance that a confrontation will be provoked when Eudena, in hiding and watching the tribe carefully, will have her maternal instinct awakened by the spectacle of the old woman punishing a little child by the name of Si, someone who could be her surrogate child: “Then something stirred in Eudena; something that had never stirred in her before; and thinking all of little Si and nothing of her fear, she sprang up from her ambush and ran swiftly forward. The old woman did not see her, for she was busy beating little Si’s face with her hand, beating with all her heart, and suddenly something hard and heavy struck her cheek.” (p. 328). This ending of this posture of concealment will signify the beginning of a brief struggle, where Ugh-lomi will emerge to give battle to the tribe who will fan out to find and confront the pair of lovers, and after a spectacular display of valor and martial display, using his axe as well to kill many rivals as he asserts control of this tribe. Order is restored, and the member of the tribe are all ultimately reconciled, to begin again a new cycle, one in which renewal has been guaranteed.
Thus we have the story of an evolutionary cycle in which primordial humans are engaged in a struggle for survival and renewal, facing as they are dangers that are inherent not only in the precarious landscape they inhabit, but also in confrontations with external predators as well as with violent and unstable social pressures from within. The new leader, Ugh-lomi, will assume control of this tribe after having vanquished his main rivals, the grizzled former leader Uya the Cunning and his wife, the old woman who had instigated his persecution at the end. After the elimination of the main threat embodied in the lion, the tribe will inaugurate a new period of production in which they will be able to procreate and ensure the survival of their social order, one that had been threatened with extinction. This process is cyclical, as ironically serves as the groundwork for the subsequent story in which the narrative of human struggle will be fast-forwarded to the future, in which the same elements of struggle and of conflictive social dynamics will be evident. The presence of violence will form a bridge between the stories, for it will serve to indicate the presence of a primordial element of existence, one that cannot be disguised by social niceties. Future societies will displace many elements of these evolutionary struggles into a framework of class-consciousness that will serve to be just as oppressive and brutalizing as that which is evident in this fable of the past.
Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2011
Copyrights ORomero 2011
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