The Sleeper Awakes

Description

One of H. G. Wells’ dystopian science fiction novels, The Sleeper Awakes deals with a topic we have seen on film so many times: a man falls into a coma as a result of the medication he takes for his insomnia and wakes up 203 years later to a London and a world he doesn’t know anymore.

Many things have changed since Graham took his sleeping pills. He became wealthy while he was asleep – his inheritance was handled by trustees who used the money to successfully establish a new world order. Graham’s awakening causes a lot of confusion – Graham himself is completely disoriented in the beginning and everyone around him is confused by the unexpected event. Graham has also become very famous while he was asleep, so when rumor spreads that he is awake, a huge crowd gathers around the building he is in, demanding to see the Sleeper.

Those around him do not want to answer his questions; what’s more, they try to isolate him by putting him into house arrest, but he escapes with the help of some rebels. He soon becomes the leader of the revolution against the world order established with his own money. The revolutionaries are victorious in London, but Graham finds out that the working classes still live among ghastly circumstances and are still revolted against the leadership. Graham continues his pursuit of truth and justice and there is still a lot he must endure, but the story ends in a tragic note.

Socialism, revolution and the betrayal of it, the exploitation of the working classes, the oppression and manipulation of the masses by a small elite – these are just a few of the important themes of the Sleeper’s story. Though Wells himself admitted that he had written the novel under pressure and therefore considered it to be suffering from serious faults caused by haste, it still makes an excellent read and provides a lot of food for thought for readers in the 21st century as well.
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