Morlock
| The Time Machine race | |
|---|---|
| Attributes | |
| Home world | Earth |
| Kind | Humanoid |
| First appearance | The Time Machine |
| Creator | H. G. Wells |
| Distinctions | Eloi |
Morlocks are a fictional species created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel, The Time Machine, and are the main antagonist. Since their creation by H. G. Wells, the Morlocks have appeared in many other works such as sequels, movies, television shows, and works by other authors, many of which have deviated from the original description.
In choosing the name "Morlocks", Wells may have been inspired by the Morlachs - an ethnic group in the Balkans which attracted the attention of West and Central European travelers and writers, including famous ones such as Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and who were described and depicted in various writings as an archetype of "primitive people", "backwardness", "barbarism" and the like.
The Morlocks are at first a mysterious presence in the book, in so far as the protagonist initially believes the Eloi are the sole descendants of humanity. Later, the Morlocks are made the story's antagonists. They dwell underground in the English countryside of AD 802,701, maintaining ancient machines that they may or may not remember how to build. Their only access to the surface world is through a series of well-like structures that dot the countryside of future England.
After thousands of generations of living without sunlight, the Morlocks have dull grey-to-white skin, chinless faces, large greyish-red eyes with a capacity for reflecting light, and flaxen hair on the head and back. They are smaller than humans (presumably of the same height as the Eloi). Like the Eloi, they are significantly weaker than the average human (the Time Traveller hurt or killed some barehandedly with relative ease), but a large swarm of them can be a serious threat for a single man, especially unarmed and/or with no portable light source. Their sensitivity to light usually prevents them from attacking during the day. The Morlocks and the Eloi have something of a symbiotic relationship: the Eloi are clothed and fed by the Morlocks, and in return, the Morlocks eat the Eloi. The Time Traveler perceives this, and suggests that the Eloi–Morlock relationship developed from a class distinction present in his own time: the Morlocks are the working class who had to work underground so that the rich upper class could live in luxury. With time, the balance of power changed - the surface people no longer dominating the underground dwellers but on the contrary, becoming their livestock. The Morlocks' cannibalism is explained by the extinction of other sources of animal protein.
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Wikipedia