Scribd
Upload
395 views

The Time Machine

The document provides a summary and analysis of H.G. Wells' 1895 novella 'The Time Machine'. It discusses the novella's influences, its two main storylines of a time traveller's adventure in the year 802,701 AD and the science fiction of time travel. It also describes the lifestyles of the Eloi and Morlocks inhabitants in the future world.

Uploaded by

Petruta Iordache
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
395 views

The Time Machine

The document provides a summary and analysis of H.G. Wells' 1895 novella 'The Time Machine'. It discusses the novella's influences, its two main storylines of a time traveller's adventure in the year 802,701 AD and the science fiction of time travel. It also describes the lifestyles of the Eloi and Morlocks inhabitants in the future world.

Uploaded by

Petruta Iordache
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

THE TIME MACHINE

CONTEXT
Several early versions ofThe Time Machinewere published in the early 1890s, but the
completed novella did not appear until 1895, when Wells was 34 years old. It was the first tale
of time travel, and it is considered one of the forerunners of the science fiction genre.
The Time Machine's literary influences are numerous. Most obvious is Jonathan
Swift's Gulliver's Travels, written a century earlier. The Time Machine is a fusion of tales
from fantastic lands, commentary on current British social questions, and an introduction to
cutting-edge scientific theories.

ANALYSIS
The Time Machine has two main threads. The first is the adventure tale of the Eloi and
Morlocks in the year 802,701 AD. The second is the science fiction of the time machine.
The adventure story includes many archetypal elements. The Time Traveller's journey
to the underworld, his fear of the great forest, and his relationship to Weena, mirror imagery
prevalent in earlier literature, imagery strongly associated with the inner workings of the
human psyche.
The tale of 802,701 is political commentary of late Victorian England. It is a dystopia,
a vision of a troubled future. It recommends that current society change its ways lest it end up
like the Eloi, terrified of an underground race of Morlocks. In the Eloi, Wells satirizes
Victorian decadence. In the Morlocks, Wells provides a potentially Marxist critique of
capitalism.
The rest of the novella deals with the science fiction of time travel. Before Wells,
other people had written fantasies of time travel, but Wells was the first to bring a strong dose
of scientific speculation to the genre. Wells has his Time Traveller speak at length on the
fourth dimension and on the strange astronomy and evolutionary trends he observes as he
travels through time. Much of this was inspired by ideas of entropy and decay promulgated by
Wells's teacher, Thomas Henry Huxley.

The Time Traveller formulates three successive theories of how the society of the Eloi
functions. What are they?
First, he thinks that the Eloi are the sole descendents of humanity. He assumes that
scientific progress continued to make life easier for humans, so much so that they lost their
edge, becoming stupid and lazy. He implies that this fate is the result of communism, as if the
lack of competition drove the human race to indolence. Second, after he discovers the
Morlocks, he thinks that the Morlocks are the slaves of the Eloi. He still feels that the Eloi
have devolved into frail creatures because their life is too easy, but he believes that the
Morlocks, humanity's other descendent, have evolved into brute workers. He thinks that this is
capitalism's division of labour taken to the extreme. Third, when he discovers that the
Morlocks hunt and terrify the Eloi, he assumes that his second theory was once true, but that
the Morlocks evolved to the point where they needed to prey on the Eloi. It is a theory of
revenge of the working classes. These successive theories do not replace each other; rather,
each one encompasses a broader view.
Describe the lifestyle of the Morlocks.
The Morlocks live below ground, in a system of tunnels. The tunnels can be entered
through ventilation ducts that are scattered around the landscape. The ducts suck air inward
and look like wells. Large underground engines keep the air flowing. The Morlocks seem to
use the pedestal of the giant white Sphinx statue as a portal to the surface. Some Morlocks
stay on the surface during the day, living in the shadow of ruins like the Palace of Green
Porcelain. At night, the Morlocks emerge from below the ground to roam the surface. They
hunt Eloi, which provide meat for the Morlocks' diet. The Morlocks are deeply afraid of light.

You might also like