In the time of ‘The Time Machine’:
Everyone is familiar with the works of science fiction of Herbert George Wells. In literature he(and Jules Verne) is the father of the science fiction genre and a master storyteller in a way that was refreshing and innovating. His style of writing was groundbreaking and ahead of his time. It’s only 30 years later that the term science fiction was coined.. In this paper we will scrutinize one of his most popular stories: ‘The Time Machine’ and its manuscript or genesis. Important thereby is to understand the history of H.G. Wells and the influences that were important in that time and in his life. Wells was born on the 21st of September in 1866 in Bromby. This would be right around the start of ‘New Imperialism’.
The Time Machine is considered to be Wells’ finest work and is incidentally the one of the first novels, if not the first novel, to deal with the fantastical notion of time travel to such an extent. Since then time travel and ‘science fiction’ has become a beloved field amongst writers. The book was published in 1895 and it became an instant succes. Which is not strange when we look at the underlying subtext of ‘The Time Machine’. Though the main story is about time travelling, we can see that the story is not as unilateral as would seem on first sight. Wells has mixes the social and scientific interest of the Victorian time. He, like many of the nineteenth century sophists were influenced by the notion of evolution, was a great believer in Progress. ‘The modern mind, he said, sees the present life as but a preparation for the future and will unhesitatingly sacrifice the past to the future because it "sees the world as one great workshop, and the present is no more than material for the future, for the one thing that is yet destined to be" ("The Discovery of the Future," New York, 1914, p. 59)’ (Hausknecht p. 3)In ‘The Time Traveller’ Wells explores the possible issues of human progress, in other words: the decline of it. The novel reflects Wells’ own time where he warns the Victorians about the disastrous effects of capitalism and segregation of society into differential social classes whilst introducing them to the then new scientific and industrial ideas. He does this by removing the expected, fanciful utopian future or even a dystopian future. In the Time Traveller’s story there are no humans anymore. The only indication that we had ever lived are the weathered buildings on which plants have grown. The story is not actually told by the Time Traveller. The Narrator of our story is an unidentified person who happens to be one of the Time Traveller’s guests. We perceive the story in the way that the Narrator allows us
In “The Cold Equations”, a short story by Tom Godwin, Godwin did some interesting things with time as he described the unfortunate story of a girl who stowed away illegally on a small spacecraft. The girl, Marilyn, did not know the consequence would be her own death. Unquestionably, in “The Cold Equations,” Tom Godwin manipulated time in order to influence the pace of the plot, because the manipulation and presence of time and deadlines creates suspense, inspires increased interest, and purposefully instills a sense of impending doom.
For it is a commonplace of our understanding of the period that the Victorian writer wanted above all to “stay in touch.” Comparing his situation with that of his immediate predecessors, he recognized that indulgence in a self-centered idealism was no longer viable in a society which ever more insistently urged total involvement in its occupations. The world was waiting to be improved upon, and solved, and everyone, poets, included had to busy themsel...
Literature and film have always held a strange relationship with the idea of technological progress. On one hand, with the advent of the printing press and the refinements of motion picture technology that are continuing to this day, both literature and film owe a great deal of their success to the technological advancements that bring them to widespread audiences. Yet certain films and works of literature have also never shied away from portraying the dangers that a lust for such progress can bring with it. The modern output of science-fiction novels and films found its genesis in speculative ponderings on the effect such progress could hold for the every day population, and just as often as not those speculations were damning. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis are two such works that hold great importance in the overall canon of science-fiction in that they are both seen as the first of their kind. It is often said that Mary Shelley, with her authorship of Frankenstein, gave birth to the science-fiction novel, breathing it into life as Frankenstein does his monster, and Lang's Metropolis is certainly a candidate for the first genuine science-fiction film (though a case can be made for Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune, his film was barely fifteen minutes long whereas Lang's film, with its near three-hour original length and its blending of both ideas and stunning visuals, is much closer to what we now consider a modern science-fiction film). Yet though both works are separated by the medium with which they're presented, not to mention a period of over two-hundred years between their respective releases, they present a shared warning about the dangers that man's need fo...
Summerville, Bruce D. "The Time Machine: A Chronological and Scientific Revision."Literature Resources from Gale. Gale, n.d. Web
Science fiction writing began in the early 1800’s as a reaction to the growth of science and technology. The genre is characterized by its intellectual excitement, high adventure, and its making of the fantastic possible. Due to the nature of science fiction, film has become an essential part of its popularity. Science fiction films have been popular since the earliest silent clips because of the outlandish visuals and creative fictional story lines that capture an audience’s attention. Under the guise of this popular platform, writers relay political, social and philosophical messages to their audience.
Science fiction is a genre that has evolved significantly over time, but has still kept its identity and essence of advanced technology and applied sciences alive. Over the years, a genre being read only by a minority is now the choice of billions. Visualizing and correlating various science fiction tales, such as “The Man Who Evolved” and “An Express of the Future”, brings out innumerable resemblances and variances between publications of this genre between the years. Published in different centuries, these tales, when compared, enable us to observe the change that has gone through in this genre, along with the constants that have remained with the genus since its start. Even though these stories have orientations of technology and themes that are poles apart in concept, the central theme that conceptualizes these narratives is that the future in store for mankind is common for both these stories, along with some similar literary elements.
Social and political classes are overtly exaggerated in “The Time Machine”. This is represented during the present
The main characters in The Time Machine were The Time Traveler, Weena (an Eloi who
[Verne is acknowledged as one of the world's first and most imaginative modern science fiction writers. His works reflect nineteenth-century concerns with contemporary scientific innovation and its potential for human benefit or destruction. In the following excerpt from an interview with Gordon Jones, he commends the imaginative creativity with which Wells constructs his scientific fantasies and stresses the difference between Wells's style and his own.]
By the example of Eloi and Morlocks, he warns of Capitalism and its consequences to mankind. This vision which is presented in “The Time Machine” shows or rather forecasts the results of the social split between the leisurely wealthy upper class and the working class, especially in the Victorian England.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was an Argentine short-story writer and essayist best known for his fiction that focused on the interconnected themes of labyrinths, dreams, religion, and time. Specifically, the idea that time can bifurcate, and that all time is occurring simultaneously are pivotal to a large portion of his writing. This essay will focus on this ideas, along with other temporal themes, providing an in-depth analysis of time throughout the body of his works, with a specific focus on The Garden of Forking Paths. Further, this essay will endeavor to answer the question of whether or not Yu Tsen’s and Stephen Albert’s views on time are in accordance with the conclusions pertaining to Borges’ time.
The Time Machine As I understand it, Darwin in his book ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES published in 1865, argues that natural selection leads to adaptive improvement. Or even, if evolution isn't under the influence of natural selection, this could still lead to divergence and diversity. At one time, there was a single ultimate ancestor, and from this, hundreds of millions of separate individual species evolved. This process where one species splits into two different species is called speciation.
The 19th century was a time of massive change socially, politically and scientifically. This time saw the rise of Imperialism and of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, seeing massive changes in the way industry was run. Also during this time the literary movements of Romanticism and Victorianism emerged. Romanticism dealt with the issues of reality versus illusion, childhood and man versus nature. The first book I will examine in this essay, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, comes from this literary period and focuses on the man versus nature theme, namely the theme of scientific development and it’s contrast to nature. The second book I will look at in this essay comes from the Victorian period of the 19th century. This period saw the rise of the Industrial Revolution and of huge social and political change. Hard Times by Charles Dickens deals with these issues very closely, focussing mainly on the rise of industry in Britain and its effects on the people of Britain. Both of these novels challenge the social, political and scientific developments of the 19th century, namely the advent of science and technology.
Time Travel has always struck close to the imagination of the minds. From H.G. Wells ' "The Time Machine" to blockbuster films like "Back to the Future" - for years, time travel was the stuff of science fiction and crazy-eyed mad men but as physicists approach the subject of time travel with new advances in scientific theories and equipment, the possibility of time travel has become a more legitimate field for scientific endeavours. This paper will argue the possibility of time travel and the positive effects that this discovery will bring forth to modern day society: technological advancements.