The Time Machine
The Time Traveller had built a time machine that would allow him to journey through time. He traveled into the future to the year 802,700. It is
an extremely different world. It seemed almost utopian-like populated by a childish people, the Eloi.
He studied and observed these creatures. Then his time machine was stolen. It is then when he discovers the existence of another people, the vicious Morlocks. Unlike, the nonchalant Eloi, the Morlocks live in desperation and must survive by cannibalism. It seems like a Capitalist system gone wrong with the upper class (Eloi) and the lower class (Morlocks). The lazy rich would play and relax all day becoming frail and helpless. Meanwhile, the poor were living underground and began to hunt the Eloi. The theory that a proletariat driven to the depths will devour the upper class is exemplified. While in search of his time machine, the Time Traveller learned about this future world. He befriends an Eloi, who he named Weena.
Then he himself was hunted by the Morlocks. He escaped by scaring them with fire. The Morlocks had hidden his machine. He finally found it and returned back to
his own time and home in England.
The Time Machine certainly makes you think. We picture the future as very advanced and evolved with much more technology than we have now. But in this novel, the reader can see that the progress of mankind could almost go in a cycle. We start off at
a low level and as a species, we grow and evolve becoming more advanced. We can only reach a certain peak before we go back down again, which is what happened to the Eloi and the Morlocks. It is interesting to note that technology is not what saved the Time Traveller from these future people. It was fire. Fire scared and killed the Morlocks. In this future, there is no sign of knowledge and what was learned in all of the years of the past. The museums, which are supposed to be filled with all of mankind's
greatest achievements, were all in ruins. No one seemed to care.
Time: How does the way the writer moves between the past and present and future affect the structure of the book? How might this technique inform my approach?
The world is advancing so rapidly today, it seems that it will never stop growing in knowledge and complexity. In the novel “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, The Time Traveler, as Wells calls him, travels hundreds of thousands of years into the future through time. He arrives at a world that, at first glimpse, is peaceful and clear of any worries. As The Time Traveler explores the world, he discovers that the human race has evolved into 2 distinct forms. Although the world appeared to be the Garden of Eden, it was, in reality, the Garden of Evil. Wells uses three aspects of the futuristic world to illustrate this: the setting, the Eloi, and the Murlocks.
He was eventually found by mobs, attacked, and his house
issues that the author deal with in the book are a prediction of the future; it can
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was an intriguing and exciting book about a Time Traveller and his journey’s through time. In this book, the Traveller explained to a group of men who were discussing the nature of time that time was the fourth dimension; just like the three dimensions of space: length, width and height. The Traveller argued that since time was a dimension, then it stood to reason that people should be able to move along the time continuum, into the past or the future. Most of the men do not seem to believe the Traveller or his theory, but agreed that they would like to travel in time, and talked about what they would do if they could. To illustrate his point, the Time Traveller went and got a model of his time machine from his laboratory to demonstrate and later returned to detail the places, things and people he had seen in his travels with his working Time Machine. Throughout the story, the Time Traveller faced setbacks and challenges, but the book outlined how he persevered and pointed to the future mankind faced.
The main characters in The Time Machine were The Time Traveler, Weena (an Eloi who
In The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveller first visits the year 802,701, where Wells begins to establish that humanity has split into two opposite and startling sub-species, the Eloi and the Morlocks, similar to “modern” humans. After his associations with the Eloi and finally outsmarting the Morlocks, the Time Traveller escapes millions of years into the future to a period devoid of human life, and once more after that to see the final devolution of man. With these experiences centuries into the future, it is clear Wells does not possess an optimistic outlook on his interpretations of the future, but rather one of regression. Wells’ idea that humanity is doomed to devolution and eventual extinction is shown through the
Wells. In this novel the human race is split into the working class and the aristocrat’s in the far future. Elio of the upper class, are small and very unintelligent. Morlocks, of the underground act as the working class. Over time, however, the Elio had become a food source for the Morlocks. What makes The Time Machine different from Metropolis is that in The Time Machine there is no one to act as the mediator between the two classes. Because of this, much further in time, the human race is eliminated and all that stands are giant crabs, in a waste land that is earth on its death
the novel is in fact based upon the idea that the past and the present
As one can see, Bradbury criticizes society about its many faults, including its addiction to technology and our inability to find time for ourselves. His criticism is cautionary though; he is trying to show us our mistakes so we can change them before it is too late. Our technological addiction and failure of finding time for our own thoughts is causing the chaos and madness in the world. Like he has said before, Bradbury is not trying to describe the future. He is trying to prevent it from happening. While our society is not as warped and twisted as the one in his novel, he wants to caution us that it might become exactly like that one day. It is up to us to prevent that from happening.
There are numerous people in society who lack certain skills that they need for survival.
Herbert George (H.G.) Wells’ 1895 scientific romance novella, The Time Machine, is considered to be one of the forerunners of the science fiction genre. Whilst the story was not the first to explore the concept of time travel, it is quite significant for its pseudoscientific account of how time travel could perhaps occur, this interpretation has shown to be quite influential to numerous productions in both media and literature. Wells explores a number of themes throughout this novella, however there are three prominent ones, the relativity of time, social Darwinism and evolution, and capitalism. These themes explore concepts which are relevant to society and creates connections with the intended 19th century audience.
As a Christian, I don't personally believe in evolution in general; I don't think humans evolved from a lower life form and I don't think we will be here for another 800,000 years to evolve into anything else. But the logical scientist in me is nonetheless intrigued at the possibilities presented in The Time Machine. So what would happen to the human race a few hundred millennia from now? Would it divide into two distinct races that live separately from one another as Wells describes? I personally don't think this would happen. The human race seems to have a stubborn quality about it -- anytime there is a challenge or obstacle to face, we tend to try to overcome it in one way or another. I remember reading somewhere recently (I can't remember where) that humans have a natural tendency to resist captivity or oppression. This is why slavery is never permenent, and the history of man is littered with uprisings and revolts. This line of thinking begs the question: if indeed the Morlocks were forced underground at one point or another, why did they stay there? Even if they accepted their new environment without question, they were going to run out of food eventually -- no sun means no plants or vegetables, correct? This is where the Time Traveler presumes that the Morlocks began to feed on the Eloi out of necessity. But wouldn't the Morlocks just return to the surface at this point? Why would they stay underground if their only food was on the surface? It doesn't seem to make sense. Nevertheless, the year 802,701 as envisioned by Wells is fascinating. I have always loved good stories, especially imaginative ones, and I must admit that The Time Machine has become one of my favorite works of literature.
We Like It, We Love It, We Want Some More of It: The Allure of Time Travel