A story of the days to come

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A Story of the Days To Come (German: "From days that come here ...") is a short novel by HG Wells , the end of the 1890s in episodes in The Pall Mall Magazine and 1899 in Tales of Space and Time , a Volume of short stories by Wells appeared.

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A young upper-class girl, Elizabeth, falls in love with Denton, a middle-class worker. But her father has other intentions and wants to marry her off to Bindon, a very rich, older man. To do this, he uses the services of a hypnotist, who have largely taken the role of the psychiatrist who takes Elizabeth's memory of Denton away. But Denton discovers the game and forces the hypnotist to give Elizabeth the memory of him again. Now the young people decide to secretly marry and to flee to the uninhabited country. The romantic dream quickly turns into its opposite, the couple return to the city. In order to be able to maintain their status , they lend on the inheritance of the girl, which is almost used up by her 21st birthday, the date of majority in this society. They have a child, but since they can no longer afford the costs and Denton cannot find a job due to Bindon's machinations, they have to put them in a home, as is the custom - professional educators are believed to be providing children for the good of society can raise better. Now the couple begins to descend into the working class. They soon find themselves forced to join a work society as a kind of social case. While they get to know the monotonous, rather brutal world of the workers there, their child dies. Your life has become bitter and hopeless. Elizabeth's father surprisingly asks her to leave Denton and return to him, into the world of the upper class. The reason for this is the influence of the rich Bindon, who continues to desire Elizabeth, even understands it as his one true love that he must have. When Bindon, warned by sudden pain, visits a doctor, it is immediately revealed to him that he no longer has a future, that he is a sickly being anyway and that does not benefit mankind, and that he should consider euthanasia. Desperate, melancholy from the doctor's medication and soon plagued by pain, Bindon hopes to win Elizabeth's love after his death by leaving her his fortune and not taking action against Denton. Then he calls the Painless Kills Service. Elizabeth and Denton are released from labor slavery and can live again in the light of the sun.

Themes and motifs

In his novel, Wells paints a picture of society in 22nd century London. London is a megalopolis , one of only four cities left in England, albeit with a population of more than 30 million. The cities are connected by high-speed trains, and the country itself is largely depopulated. Wells reports on various technological advances that determine people's daily lives. So people go to their workplaces by airplanes or on treadmills. Society itself is divided into three classes: the rich, the working middle class, and the poor, dependent workers. These live underground and, due to economic hardship, have to join one of the labor societies that give poor people or those who have been relegated from the middle class food and an apartment in return for their work - a kind of hopeless "social network" at the bottom of the economic system. Similar ideas about the development of society, and a similar criticism of the English class system, can be found in Wells' novel The Time Machine , in which the underground Morlocks likely evolved from the working classes.

Also interesting is the mention of euthanasia towards the end of the story. A rich man is advised to allow himself to be killed in order to save himself pain; from a medical and scientific point of view, he should never have lived anyway. Wells is often portrayed as a representative of eugenics , but the rich man's struggle with the cold logic of medicine is not portrayed one-sided, but can also be seen as a criticism of the arrogance of a science that dictates people's happiness and fate.

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