When the Time Traveller stopped his Machine he was amazed to find a group of eight or ten ‘exquisite creatures’ around him. The creatures were called Eloi; they live a life of ease in this weird and wonderful new world that the Time Traveller discovered.
The Eloi were four feet high and wore a purple tunic with sandals or buskins. The climate was warmer than the Time Traveller was used to. Their hair was ‘uniformly curly’ their ears ‘singularly minute’. Their mouths were small, with bright red, thin lips. Their eyes were large and mild. The creatures spoke in ‘soft cooing notes to each other’ and their language was very simple. However to the Time Travellers disappointment they lacked interest in him.
The Eloi lived together in a great building of ‘colossal dimensions.’ They ate together in great halls, but unlike the 19th century they were all eating fruit and vegetables. This was because horses, cattle, sheep and dogs had all become extinct. The Time Traveller soon realised that there were no sign of tombs or cemeteries, or any sign of factories or industry.
The Eloi’s lazy approach to life astonished the Time Traveller. He was amazed at their lethargic attitude. They had beautiful gardens that were ‘long neglected.’ The little creatures soon got tried of the Time Travellers queries and questions and they wanted to get away from him. The Eloi’s lack of intelligence also astonished the Time Traveller. The Eloi asked questions with the intelligence of a five-year-old. The Time Traveller thought that going so far ahead into the future the creatures that lived in that time would be very advanced in technology. However he soon found out that the creatures he has met in 802,000 lacked in the advances of Technology and Science that the time traveller had first thought. Probably the technology in the 19th century was more advanced than the world of 802,000.
When the Time Traveller was with the little Eloi named Weena he came to the conclusion that the Eloi for some reason were scared of the dark ‘Darkness to her was the one thing dreadful.’
To the Time Traveller the Eloi seemed to have made a perfect world for them selves but there was one problem the Morlocks!
When the Time Traveller met the graceful Eloi he was unaware that there was another race in this new time that he has discovered. When the Time Traveller came across this other race of creatures the Morlocks for the first time he was sleeping and got woke up. He found a few of these white bleached looking creatures scuttling about carrying a dark small thing that the Time Traveller later realised that it was an Eloi.
The Morlocks are only seen in the dark and their large, bright eyes are sensitive to light. This is because they can see better in the dark and when there in their large underground homes and factories. The Time Traveller takes their large sensitive eyes for granted and uses matches to scare them away when they are near. ‘I was assured of their absolute helplessness and misery in the glare, and I struck no more of them’ The Morlocks were blinded when the Time Traveller set alight to the forest and he realised that their sensitive eyes were their only weak point.
The Morlocks have degenerated into a sub-human race because of there ancestors the lower class people. The people of the 19th century started to go underground with the metropolitan rail system, with underground restaurants and cafes and workrooms. These increased until the industries had moved underground. The underground factories became bigger and bigger. Now the working class worked and lived underground. Eventually the people evolved into the Morlocks.
The two worlds of the Eloi and the Morlocks are a grim and frightening view of what future could become. This is because the higher-class (the Eloi) people who have lots of money and an easy life have become lethargic. They have left their responsibilities to look after their world to the lower and working class (the Morlocks).
I think that HG Wells wanted to tell and show people how the world could change. So I think that he wrote ‘The Time Machine’ to explain that if the 19th century social class system did not change, the people of 19th century would eventually progress, and evolve, to not just two distinct groups of people but two distinct races. HG Wells tried to show his own thoughts about the 19th century through the Time Traveller. The Time Traveller said things like ‘The upper-world people might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away.’ This means that the upper class people might have been the elite society once but this has changed. This is a reversal of the old orders of the 19th century man the lower class people have now become more efficient than the upper class people. The upper class people have now become less efficient and lacking in technology. The time traveller was disappointed with the new world that he had had travelled two. ‘all the activity, all the traditions, the complex organisations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations, even the mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been swept out of existence.’
HG Well’s wrote in the formal typical style of 19th century Britain. Throughout the piece the vocabulary and sentence structure tends to be very complex. ‘I went slowly along, puzzling about the machines, and had been too intent upon them to notice the gradual diminution of the light, until Weena’s increasing apprehensions drew my attention.’ The words used in this quotation such as apprehensions, which means decrease, shows the formal and complex vocabulary of the 19th century. Another use of typical 19th century Britain style of writing is when Well’s introducing the dinner in chapter one near the start of the story. ‘And he put it to us in this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this paradox (as we thought it :) and his fecundity.’
Even though Wells used vocabulary and sentence structure of a typical 19th century British writer he sometimes wrote different and unusual ways. Often when Wells was describing events or building up suspense, he wrote in a manner that would have been common of a journalist. When he wrote in this journalistic way his sentences were normally short and fast paced. ‘I seemed just to nod and open my eyes. But all was dark, and the Morlocks had their hands upon me.’
When HG wells was describing the Eloi and the Morlocks he used different types of words and phrases for each of them. When describing the Eloi’s he uses words that are good to describe the pleasant and harmless creatures. ‘I saw some further peculiarities in their Dresden-china type prettiness.’ However when Wells was describing the Morlocks his language and choice of describing words suddenly changed. He described the Morlocks as if they were they scum of the earth! ‘Living, as they did, in what appeared to me impenetrable darkness, their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive, just as are pupils of the abysmal fishes, and they reflected the light in the same way.’
I think hat HG Wells evolved the Eloi and the Morlocks from the worst features of man and our behaviour. Clearly Wells' purpose is to give a horrifying warning that without major social reform, there will be little future for humanity and what we do now is of vital importance to the future of our world. He also suggests that with such reform, the bleak future may be replaced with something far more desirable. To me he gives a good view of what life could be like in 802,000 and what life could be like if the world of today does not change.
