The significance of scientific investigation within the works of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Eleanor Merry College

Scientific investigation as a motif in Victorian literature served as both a source of inquisitiveness and terror in its youth as an ideological school of thought. Both Mary Shelley and H. G. Wells take time to scientifically dissect these facets of horror and experimentation through literature, by questioning the validity of science and its subsequent effect upon society in their contemporary environment and also those in the ages to come. They each provoke the questions of whether science is something to be feared or admired - or even perhaps both - and ultimately ask the question: how far can we really go until science has gone too far?

The subject of logic in science and the supposed incontrovertibility of scientific investigation very much presents itself in both Shelley and Wells’ works and serves as a warning of the limits of human knowledge and the differentiation between theory and practical action. Of course, the time traveller is able to practically construct and operate his time machine, however, at no point is the reader presented with any evidence that a significant amount of planning or predetermination went into the journey to the future at all. The reader is not shown a concisely and meticulously conducted...