Symbolism In The Time Machine

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells essay The Time Machine is a science fiction book made by H.G. Wells, and published in 1895. The book takes place in England in the 1890’s, but the characters live in very different time periods. There are four main characters; Eloi, The time traveler, the Morlocks, and Weena. The main theme of the book is never let your ambitions overtake who you are, be able to coexist with other people that have different motivations, and while you can impact the present, the same is not true for the past or the future. This is shown when the Time Traveler’s desire for scientific discovery led to the untimely death of Wenna because of his enormous forest fire used to protect himself from the Morlocks. While not intentional, he learned through this

There all represent something different, but are intertwined by the journey of our narrator, the Time traveler. Fire is a very important symbol in this book and is commonly shown, this quote further illustrated when the Timer Traveler says,"What a rare thing flame must be in the absence of man" (9,376).This means, it's people who make fire. The tools we have is one thing that sets us apart from other animals, and fire is one of our most important, and our oldest tool. The second important symbol is the White Sphinx, this idea is derived from greek mythology, the Sphinx asked a riddle and ate people who failed to answer it correctly. The Time traveller relates the riddle to find his time machine directly to the Sphinx, because if he does not solve the riddle he will die. This life or death situation is further explained by this quote "It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind" (4.24).This quote implies there is a connection between the riddle of the Sphinx,and the Time Traveller observing the aging of the human