‘The Time Traveller describes his story as a ‘prophecy’. What warnings from the future does he bring to the people of the 1890s and, overall, do you consider his message to be one of hope or despair?’

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Jon Overton

The Time Machine

'The Time Traveller describes his story as a 'prophecy'. What warnings from the future does he bring to the people of the 1890s and, overall, do you consider his message to be one of hope or despair?'

The Time Machine was first published by Wells in the 1890s as a warning against what might happen to humankind if society continued to go on as they were doing at that time. The novel points out to society the possible consequences of their present actions; this is done through the examination of the imaginary world in which the Eloi and Morlocks live.

The first observation that can be made about the character of the Time Traveller is that he seems to have an air of prophetic wisdom about him. This is clear even at the very beginning of the book where he is said to be "expounding a recondite matter", what this means is that he is talking about something which is hidden from ordinary, public knowledge. He is probably described in this way because he has been to the future and so therefore in a sense he represents the future, as the future is unknown and mystical this may be the reason he is portrayed in this way. Although it may be because when people know thins that others don't they become all quiet and mystical, as the Time Traveller is. This therefore adds a touch of mystery to the book even before the first sentence is complete. The prophetic manner of the Time Traveller is also enhanced by the fact that nowhere in the book do we find out his name. He is always refereed to as 'the time traveller' this adds a sense of mystery to the novel because it suggests that he is so deeply profound that to know his name would be creating a sense of familiarity between the reader and the character, it is best left out of the novel for this reason.

There are several warnings that the Time Traveller is giving to the people of the 1890s and the first of these is the lack of compassion and concern for the welfare of others that the strange beautiful creatures of 802,701 have. They are described in chapter 8 where Weena, one of the "beautiful creatures", is drowning. He tells us that there is a "strange deficiency in these creatures" and that " none made the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly-crying little thing" This shows that the Eloi either could not care less about their fellow creatures, or that they are incapable of doing anything themselves through years of adapting to everything being done for them. In my opinion, it is a mixture of these two things. The Eloi, as you find out later on in the novel are food for the Morlocks, the subterranean beings of the future world, or as the Time Traveller describes it the "Golden Age". So because the Eloi are constantly being eaten by the Morlocks the eventual outcome is going to be a total lack of feeling for fellow creatures. This would be worrying to the people of the 1890's as the family unit, being that the father goes out to work, the mother stays at home to cook, clean and to look after the children, and the fact that families did not separated as they are today, was considered very important at that time.
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The second warning that the Time Traveller makes is that if society continues as it was at that time eventually the upper classes would become inactive and over-reliant on the lower classes to do everything for them. This is the clear-cut outcome that the Time Traveller is conveying to the reader. To put this idea across Wells uses different techniques. The first and most obvious one is that the entire society of 802,701 revolves around this theme. The Eloi, which represents the upper classes, are totally dependent on the Morlocks, representing the lower classes who are, in turn, ...

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