What is Filby's Psychological Purpose in H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine'?
Filby's Part in The Time Machine: The Anchor of Victorian Skepticism
In H.G. Wells' seminal 1895 novella The Time Machine, the eponymous Time Traveller gathers a group of acquaintances in his richly appointed London study to demonstrate his revolutionary device. Among this eclectic assembly of Victorian professionals—which includes a Medical Man, a Provincial Mayor, a Psychologist, and a Journalist—stands Filby, a distinct character whose role is frequently understated yet crucial to the psychological architecture of the story.
The Function of the Foil
Linguistically and narratively, Filby acts as a narrative foil. While the Psychologist represents academic intellect and the Medical Man embodies empirical observation, Filby represents common sense, stubborn orthodoxy, and the average Victorian intellect. When the Time Traveller first unveils his miniature model and proposes that time is simply the fourth dimension of space, it is Filby who voices immediate, vocal skepticism.
"It is against reason," said Filby.
By establishing Filby as a man tethered firmly to conventional physical laws, Wells creates a psychological baseline. If the narrative began with the Time Traveller lecturing a room of gullible believers or mystical dreamers, the suspension of disbelief would fail. Instead, by convincing—or at least unsettling—a stubborn traditionalist like Filby, the narrative gains a veneer of plausibility.
The Historical and Societal Subtext
From a cultural etymology and historical perspective, Filby embodies the late-Victorian anxiety regarding rapid scientific disruption. The 1890s were a crucible of paradigm shifts: thermodynamics, evolutionary biology, and early quantum theories were dismantling Newtonian absolutes. Filby’s resistance to the concept of time travel mirrors society's collective reluctance to abandon absolute chronometry in favor of a malleable, Einsteinian continuum (years before Einstein published special relativity).
Furthermore, Filby's return in the framing narrative—appearing at the dinner party days later, awaiting the Time Traveller's harrowing return—underscores the cyclical nature of bourgeois English life. He represents the hearth, the cigar smoke, and the predictable march of linear time from which the Traveller departs and to which he desperately tries to warn humanity it must not become complacent.
Ultimately, Filby’s part is to bridge the gap between the reader's mundane reality and the cosmic, apocalyptic deep-time visions of the Eloi and the Morlocks.