威爾斯（H. G. Wells）的時間機器想像了一個人類退化為野獸的未來。事實上，退化（degeneration）是十九世紀晚期一種普遍的焦慮與恐懼；以退化為探討主題的論述，被稱為退化理論（degeneration theory）。大部分對此小說的分析都只探討小說中退化的形象，但本論文直接以退化的社會背景為出發點，進而探討小說的政治意涵。另外，我們也在分析中加入了佛洛依德（Sigmund Freud）的精神分析理論，因為就某些方面來說，精神分析對抗與否定了退化理論。因此，本論文以政治角度來閱讀時間機器，可讓我們同時瞭解退化理論、小說、精神分析三者的社會背景。經由這樣的角度，我們可以瞭解「退化」其實是中產階級藉以保有階級地位的方式。既然小說借用退化理論的意象來說故事，它可能必須受到退化理論也一直承受的類似批評：那就是，「退化」是劃分階級界線的工具。因此，本論文借用佛洛依德的精神分析理論，來探討時間機器是否只是用來保有中產階級的地位的。本論文的結構安排為：第一章為文獻回顧；第二章介紹退化理論並探討它在小說中扮演的角色；第三章探討精神分析與退化理論之間的關係，然後以精神分析的角度來解讀小說；最後，第四章呈現了十九世紀資本社會的權力結構，然後探討時間機器與精神分析在此權力結構中所遭遇的限制。 H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine imagines a future when man devolves into beast. This is actually a common anxiety and fear of degeneration in late nineteenth century. Discourses that deal with this theme are called “degeneration theory.” Unlike most critiques that focus only on the images of degeneration in this novel, the present thesis begins with the social context of degeneration and looks into the political implication of the novel. Moreover, we introduce into the analysis Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, which in some way has a rebellious history with degeneration theory. Reading the novel from the political angle, we could understand the social context surrounding degeneration theory, the novel, and psychoanalysis. By doing so we could understand that the concept of degeneration is the bourgeois’ means to secure the class identity. And since the novel borrows concepts from degeneration theory it might share the critiques that degeneration theory receives; that is, degeneration is a means of class division. Thus, this thesis, with Freud’s theory, tries to discuss whether The Time Machine is also a means to secure the status of the bourgeois. Hence, the thesis is organized thus: Chapter 1 presents a review of literature; Chapter 2 introduces degeneration theory and detects its presence in the novel; Chapter 3 introduces the relationship between psychoanalysis and degeneration theory and analyzes the novel in a psychoanalytic point of view; Chapter 4 discusses the power mechanism of the nineteenth-century capitalist society and indicates the limitations both of psychoanalysis and of the novel within this power mechanism.
