When the sleeper wakes up

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sleeper Awakes (ger .: When the Sleeper Wakes ) is a dystopian novel by the British author HG Wells from the year 1899th

It is one of Wells' most ambitious novels , but it barely satisfied the author or the critics. The narrative structure, plot structure and figure representation seemed to be in need of improvement at this point in time.

On the occasion of the new edition of the work in 1911, Wells therefore took the opportunity to make a number of changes. The new edition of the novel appeared in English-speaking countries from then on under the title The Sleeper Awakes .

content

At the end of the 19th century, the protagonist Graham fell into a deadly rigidity after several nights of insomnia. So it remains for a period of more than two hundred years. When he finally wakes up, he finds out that he has become the richest and most powerful man in the world during his long sleep, because his fortune has grown immensely through clever investments by his business representatives. In this way one is Trust - oligarchy is preparing the way, now the unrestricted ruler of the entire world.

Graham finds himself confronted with a society that is extremely divided due to the distribution of property, which is a consistent extrapolation of the capitalist social tendencies of the 19th century. Soon he becomes the plaything of various interest groups who hope to gain power of their own through his manipulation. Graham, however, who was himself a socialist revolutionary in his own time , finally takes the side of the underprivileged and disadvantaged working class and campaigns for the goal of social justice against the oligarchy and their camarilla .

effect

This novel, which belongs to the Scientific Romances , i.e. the author's early works, addresses the dark side of mechanization and modernization . It shows the dehumanization of humans as a consequence of a lack of ethics in dealing with economic and technical progress.

HG Wells' terrifying vision of the future influenced many other works of the genre. Thus, The Sleeper Awakes as a precursor of dystopias such as Zamyatin's We , Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's 1984 apply.

source

Wells, HG: The Sleeper Wakes . Revised Edition, London 2005.

Web links