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He also asserts that there is a greater social problem in a society driven by money. He writes “See what the world pays teachers and discoverers and what it pays businessmen! That shows the ones it really wants” (136). Largely, the book covers the troubles of the low class in their bid to make something good for themselves. This novel reflects on the life of the society at the time it was written and specifically concerns the social changes caused by industrialization and consumerism trends. A notable focus of this book, in the aspect of the argument of this paper, is that the people in this age can find a bearing the insights into their social life. By covering the socialist ideals and ideas, Tono-Bungay not only becomes important for the society during its setting but also in subsequent generations as the social issues in the book are transferrable from one era to another.
At the beginning of the novel, Wells narrates through George the ignorance of the lower class in society. They are easily duped by the wealthy class to continue serving them hence enriching themselves only. George comes to learn of the world of the wealthy class as a boy through listening to the comic and humiliating conversations of men and women of the lower class in society. Wells's narrations point out that these conversations mirrored the unawareness as well as the rigidity that these men and women of the lower English class had towards their plight. These people have adopted a cliché mode of life in which they have gained so much comfort that they do not seek to improve their lives or that of their future generations. George, young as he is at the time, can tell that the sickness is in the social fabric of the English society he lives in. George says “She is real, the one reality I have found in this strange disorder of existence” (277)” His love for Marion is the only good thing in his mixed-up life. This implies that there was so much going on wrong in society at the time. By choosing to be rigid and continuing with the societal cliché of serving the wealthy in this society, these men and women miss the chance of redeeming themselves and changing the order of life.