An Unfair Coin Flip

Turn on your TV and turn to the news, and you'll see stories like that of a young refugee who can't be reunited with their parents. If you flip channels, you might see children starving in the Congo, or mothers deathly sick because they don't have money for medicine. Yet if you turn on Instagram, there are millions of people with enough extra money to feed a family for a year. Just look at the amount of money they can spend on Starbucks drink photos! Yet those suffering remain suffering. In fact, most people don't even spare another thought to the issue after they turn the TV off. The unfairness of the world is grating, and it particularly grated on the author H. G. Wells. In a conversation with a friend, he wagered that one out of five people living in England had boots that hurt their feet. Not because shoes in England weren't well-made, but because they simply didn't have money to afford better. Using the symbol of boots, Wells criticizes the unfairness of class separation and establishes that the solution is for the world to be socialist.

"It does not do to think about boots," a friend of Wells tells us. Yet through boots, Wells shows us that class separation is not only real but a pressing problem. Wells accomplishes this through the symbolism of boots. The boots of the common folk pinch and hurt; they disfigure the feet because they are not made to fit. Wealthy people have shoes that do not chafe or hurt. In this way, boots are the symbol of classism. For if one does not have the money to buy good shoes, it goes with sound reasoning that "the clothes people wear are no better than their boots; and the houses they live in far worse" (Wells, 7). Those who suffer the misery of boots are suffering in a hard world. Wells sees the suffering, and he comments that those suffering "are living in a badly managed world and [are] on the wrong side of it" (Wells, p. 10). Through the symbolism of boots, Wells impresses on us that class separation is an unfair flip of a coin toss andshould not exist.

Wells sees it as crucially important that the suffering of the poor be changed. "The misery of boots is not an unavoidable curse upon mankind," Wells writes. With these words, he seeks to convince the reader that change can be made. Something must be done about this "badly managed world" (Wells, 10), and Wells' solution is that the world turns to socialism. Wells reasons that socialism will remove the true problem: landowners. Wells argues that the poor suffer because of landowners, who "exact their claims, and squeeze comfort, pride, happiness out of the lives of the common run of people" (Wells, 14). To emphasize his point, Wells likens the wealthy landowner as a spoilt child, who has "got all the toys together and claimed all of them, and refused to let the others have any." In the same way that the spoilt child should share, should not the landowners give up their land to benefit the world?

Well’s goes on to explain what Socialism is and how it could solve class separation through the symbol of boots. He believed that Socialism would affect class separation because, "Socialism aims to change, not only the boots on people's feet, but the clothes they wear, the houses they inhabit, the work they do, the education they get, their places, their honors, and all their possessions" (Wells, p. 18). Socialism is all about making society fair, not about the rich and powerful living a different life from the poor. H.G. Wells’ solution is for every citizen to be equal in what they have, so that no one is suffering after the wealth is passed out. Through explaining Socialism Wells further supports that Socialism is the solution to solving the problem of class separation.

In conclusion, Wells uses the metaphor of boots to open our eyes to the unfairness of society. He states that there is a problem with society and that the problem is class separation. Wells explains to us that the separation of social classes has led to poverty for many people, as can be seen through their boots. The solution that Wells saw to be best is socialism, an idea in which everyone is served equally. This would eliminate the unfairness of social classes. More importantly, it would eliminate the suffering of the impoverished. Though H.G. Wells wrote "The Misery of Boots" in 1919, socialism is still a crucial idea for readers in the modern age to consider. Class separation is a pressing problem, and the suffering in the world caused by poverty has not lessened. Socialism could be the solution to many global problems such as poverty and starvation and could save the lives of millions of people.

-B. Lit. Group Six