Exporing the Social Application and Consequences of Eugenic Theory Essay

Exporing the Social Application and Consequences of Eugenic Theory Using Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Wells' Time Machine - Essay Example , ought to reproduce according to scientific principles to generate the best possible genetic pool†¦Eugenicists regarded their movement as a rational and humanitarian effort to improve the human condition (Barrett 497). However, the eugenics movement led to the policies adopted by Hitler and the Nazis in their genocide of the Jewish people. Germany is not the only country to have a history of eugenics in official policy; the United States sterilized many people with mental handicaps in the 1920’s under the ideal of improving the human race. The genocide of World War II and the sterilization of mentally handicapped people are examples of extreme and direct eugenic policies. There are, however, less direct ways in which eugenics is implemented, such as through social classes. People of an upper class refusing to associate and mix with people of a lower class keeps these social classes genetically separate. Such an idea can be found in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. H.G. Wells, however, attempts to show the consequences of implementing such a eugenics policy in his novel The Time Machine. In viewing these works together, we can see how Wells was responding to the sort of ideas found in Wilde’s work and the negative consequences of such policies. The promotion of the separation between social classes can be seen most clearly by the title character Dorian Gray and Lord Henry Wotton. In specific, we can see how their attitudes towards Dorian’s involvement with the actress Sybil Vane and Dorian’s admittance to the murder of Basil Hallward most clearly states these ideas. These attitudes, though not directly advocating eugenics, clearly would lead to the fragmented society portrayed in Wells. Dorian falls in love with the actress Sybil Vane mostly because he finds her to be incredibly talented. In eugenics, it is believed that talent is genetically linked (Field 3), so since he found her so talented she was acceptable as a mate, even