the novel The Time Machine, H.G. Wells shows the reader a pessimistic glimpse of what he perceives to be the future of the industrial world. The way the writer tells the story, he tries to get the reader to believe what he believes in the fourth dimension, the time machine, and his pessimistic future. For the writer of fantastic stories to help the reader play the game properly, he must help him in every possible unobtrusive way to domesticate the impossible hypothesis. He must trick him into an unwary concession to some plausible assumption and get on with his story while the illusion holds. This is exactly Wells technique in The time machine .(Hillegas p.
200) The Time Machine was mostly based on how the author felt. He came from a poor group of people among a town of wealthy people observing the disparity of both of the social classes. It is almost like the Morlocks living among the Eloi. In The Time Machine Wells devices a geographical landscape functioning as a Poe-esque symbol of psychological terrain. (Rainwater p 35) Some say that he was beyond his time. Powerfully influenced by Darwin, Wells shows the direction in which the world was headed.
He sought that the female gender of humans would be on an equal level as male gender. Also he anticipated the use of weapons of mass destruction, like atomic weapons, that would destroy large cities and maybe eventually the world. Wells was ahead of his time. He was, in many respects, a pessimist, and yet he continued to hope that somehow humanity would see its folly before its too late. (Platzner p 113) In showing the reader of how he feels of the future, he has the Time Traveler explain about the time traveling device. Next, Wells talks about the life in the year eight hundred and two thousand seven hundred and one AD.
The Essay on The Time Machine 4
The history of this short novel is imformational. It shows Wells developing and exploring the idea consistently over several years, as his rate of production would restrain him from ever doing again. In many ways, The Time Machine is his most complete work; a thorough development of the Darwinian ideas he had absorbed at the Normal School of Science and that would form the bedrock of everything ...
Then the author writes about his character, observing the environment of thousands of millions of years passed the time of the Morlocks and the Eloi. Later, the reflection of how the Time Traveler felt on his visit to the future. Finally, he shows how to change the future; the Time Traveler returning back in time to make it better. The Time Machine is a bleak and sober vision of mans place in the universe. (Hillegas p 200) The story begins at a dinner party at the Time Travelers house. The inventor of a time machine explains to his guests the principles on which his time machine is based. He tells them the relationship of time and space.
In his theory there was not only three dimensions, but four, and he can prove it. To the amazement of his guests he asks one of them to pull one of the levers on his model machine and it disappeared. He says that the model moved back in time so fast that it was invisible for the eye to see. When the Time Traveler came back to the present, he gives his dilemma of proving his traveling. He shows the flowers Weena gave him. The Medical Man examined it and said that he did not recognize it.
Asking if he can keep them, the Time Traveler replied no to his When the Time Traveler traveled to the future he noticed that the life in the year eight hundred and seven hundred and one AD was a lot different than the nineteenth century. The earth seemed to be missing animal life, diseases, and the advancement of man. The future of man was almost primitive again. The people he met had no common language he recognized so he had to communicate through signs. The people were vegetarians and only ate fruit because all other animals were extinct on the earth for some unanswerable reason. The Time Traveler noticed that the Eloi (what the people called themselves) were very frail, tired quickly, and had a short attention span just like a two year old.
As evolution evolved man, they needed not to be strong and very intelligent because there is no war or confrontation. Among the people he met a girl named Weena which he rescued from drowning who was a new friend and a guide through this mysterious world. Later one day the Time Traveler realized that his time machine was missing. Upon his search on the fourth morning, in the shadows he sees a pair of eyes looking at him. They were like the eyes of a cat or owl as if light were shined on them. Soon it darted out fast passed him and went into a well-like opening in the ground. It was a humanoid figure, but it was white.
The Essay on Time Travel 2
Time travel is one of the most interesting topic in science fiction. Time travel is usually depicted in movies such as “Back to the Future,” “Time Machine,” or Star Trek, you will see people hopping in strange machines or using a device that will take them back and forth through time. At one point almost every kid’s dream or science fiction fanatic’s vast ...
He came to the conclusion that the present human evolved into categories: the people above and the people below. The subterranean dwellers must have worked for the dwellers in the upper world. He went down the well and ended up in a cavern. He saw a table with a hunk of meat on it which looked like one of the Eloi. The Morlocks (which they called themselves) were cannibals. Also down there ,he saw a mass of large machinery.
Knowing that the Morlocks were familiar with machinery, he knew it was them who were holding his vehicle. After visiting a museum of green porcelain he and his friend Weena decided to sleep out on a hill near a forest. When he woke up, he found that she was missing. The next night he prepared to ram open the doors of the bronze doors which was holding his time machine. He found the doors opened, with his machine plain in view. As a gang of Morlocks tried to ambush him, he took off through time Arriving a couple million years later, he landed on a beach with no trace of life anywhere.
Turning his head after hearing a large screech, he sees what seems to be a gigantic white butterfly flying to the mainland. Looking straight at a twelve oclock direction, he sees a large red rock approaching him. Checking his view again, it was a giant red crab. Then there was another one looking straight at him from behind. Startled, he hit the lever and went forward in time about thirty million years from his laboratory to the present. The earth he used to know now is very quiet. The weather all around is cold and snowy.
The sun which used to be bright yellow at noon was larger than ever with a red pigment to it. It seemed that life was extinct. No traces of anything. Not even a chirp of a cricket. Only the sound of the ocean waves crashing onto the beach and the sound of silent death. The Time Traveler began his voyage home In his heart the Time Traveler was very sad, depressed, and disappointed about how the industrial world had become.
The Essay on Time Traveler Future Technology World
There are three working theories the Time Traveler developed upon his visit to the distant future. The first is the laziness of what human-kind has become. The second is the division between the classes, below ground and above it. The third is based on how human evolution had gone back to its starting point. The glorification of technology is not the answer to the utopian life we all seek. The ...
It is just like how Mr. Wells feels about our future. The Time Traveler thought of the advancements made by man, and the technological advancements that were thought of, but never made. Something must have happened. Could it have been a nuclear holocaust? After returning to the present, the Time Traveler is prepared to go on his voyage again; this time with supplies. He brings a camera and a nap sack. Looking forward to changing the future for man and making it better for not only him, but all.
When leaving, one of his friends witnesses him departing and is the only one who believes in the Time Traveler about him really going into time. Three years later after writing about his friend, the Time Traveler still had not returned. In conclusion H.G. Wells writes the book the Time Machine just to show the readers his view of the future and to hope that humanity can take the right path for the future. The Time Machine had such an enormous impact on the twentieth century anti-utopia. (Hillegas p
Bibliography:
Works Cited Hillegas, Mark R. The Future as Nightmare: H.G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians, Oxford University Press.
(1967) Platzner, Robert L. Without Prejudice, The Pall Mall Magazine Vol. VII (1985) Rainwater, Catherine. Encounters with the White Sphinx: Poes Influence on Some Early Works of H.G. Wells, English Literature in Transition 1983 pp. 35-51 Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. (1991) 19:450 Wells, H.G. The Time Machine. England: (1895) Young, Kenneth.
H.G. Wells, Longman Group Ltd. (1974).
