ENG Task Two

• Introduction

  Have the power to connect and shape societies worldwide through the expression of shared values, attitudes, and opinions
• H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine' (1895)


  Responds to a period of rapid industrialisation by criticising Victorian society's apathetic attitudes towards further progress
• Robert Zemeckis' Back to The Future (1985)


  Challenges Ronald Reagan's response to the Cold War by questioning his nostalgia for past cultural values of the 1950s
• In periods of rapid progress, changed societal attitudes that negatively affect human relationships, influence textual responses that critique scientific and cultural changes
• Speculative fiction

  Imagines future worlds to examine their dystopian qualities that challenge contemporaneous attitudes to encourage change
• Wells' 'The Time Machine'

  Criticises Victorian society's apathetic attitudes towards further technological progress, leading to a plateau of innovation and a loss of human intelligence
• The imagery in "I grieved to think… [how] the human intellect… had committed suicide" reflects the Victorian Era's tension between faith in progress and anxiety over its consequences
• Through the enumeration in "[An] abominable desolation [with a] Dead Sea [,] foul… monsters… [and] poisonous-looking… plants", Wells ultimately critiques Victorian complacency with current innovation
• The allusion towards history and science in "A museum… thick with dust… a huge skeleton… some extinct creature" satirises the founding of museums in the Victorian Era
• The salience of a confident Goldy looking down on his boss in the midshot as they bicker over the potential for a coloured mayor reaffirms the normality of racism in the 1950s
• The dialogue of "a coloured mayor, that'll be the day" accentuates the belief that people of colour were inferior and the boss' quick dismissal of the idea, despite Goldy's confidence, underscores his firm values and lack of adaptability
• Zemeckis critiques the values of Reagan's passive government and the regressive ignorance of social progress in the homeless man scene where the salience of the man in the midshot is a vector towards the ironic signage of "California Rais[ed]"
• In the political campaign scene, the salience of the symbolic patriotic colours in the close-up of the posters advertising the mayoral candidate alongside the megaphone ironically advertising "progress" critiques the social regression of the 1980s as values have not progressed since the identical slogan to the 1950s contrasts the promise of progress
• The recurrence of segregation perpetuated by the human desire to feel powerful in texts emphasises the consistent concerns for the loss of human compassion within society
• Wells reinforces the proletariat fight for survival whilst the bourgeoisie lived in luxury in "Upon my left arm, I carried my little one, in my right hand… my iron bar"
• The high modality language in "Must have the Haves… and… the Have-nots… continually adapted to…their labour" satirises the increasing class gap between the bourgeoisie and proletarians in reflection of Marxist exploitation of labour
• When Marty is pushed into the African-American band's car on the night of the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, Biff's friends in the dimly backlit midshot use derogatory language towards the band members, calling them "spooks" and "reefer addicts" underscoring the casual racism present within 1950s American society
• As power has shifted from a set person to an entire society, different ways of separating people have emerged
• While Wells' 'The Time Machine' criticises Victorian society's apathetic attitudes towards further technological progress, Zemeckis' Back to the Future questions the nostalgia for the 1950s and the politics of Reagan
• Cautionary tales have existed for many decades, increasing awareness of threats to human compassion and encouraging societies to imagine change
• With each iteration of a cautionary tale, societies' approaches to concerns have changed, incrementally progressing towards an ideal