Chapter one, the time traveller has a dinner party. They had gone to another room after eating their dinner to discuss the fourth dimension. The time traveller wanted to demonstrate to them the fourth dimension by his miniature version of the time machine, so that they could become a witness of the fourth dimensions occurring. At this dinner party there are only males present, because in the Victorian times women were not superior to men, this reflects the historical influences that existed in those times and relates to the essay question. Men who attended the time travellers dinner party was not named through out the whole book, except for one whose name was Filby. The other guests were named after their occupation, for example there were psychologists, provincial mayor, medical man, narrator, the very young man and the time traveller himself. The reason why Filby is not named after his occupation is that it was not a very important one.
There is also a character who was the time traveller’s domestic servant, her name was Mrs Watchett. From this H.G Wells wanted to express that and stress that they may not earn a lot of money, however that does not make them any less of a person. He stated this because his mum and dad were domestic servants.
The narrator announces that if Filby was to explain the idea of a fourth dimension, a butcher would have been able to understand him. “Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the time traveller’s words, we should have shown him far less scepticism. For we should have perceived his motives: a pork butcher could understand Filby.”
As the time traveller went on to describe the fourth dimension with his miniature model of the actual time machine, they did not consider him telling the truth. The time traveller took a step further and showed them the real time machine.” are you not earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that machine has travelled into time?” They thought that this was all just a big joke. “Are you perfectly serious? Or is this just a trick- like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?” They couldn’t quite hear there ears because just at that time the third dimensions had been recently accomplished so was the hot air balloon, the aeroplane was not yet invented. The third dimension was height or moving up and down.
The guests go home and he travels into the future by using his time machine and stops in the year of 802701 AD. He noticed big buildings and more people around. “Already I saw other vast shapes – huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns, with a wooded hillside dimly creeping in upon me through the lessoning storm” From that quote we can say that H.G Wells’s prediction was true about their being more buildings and people. As he continued he noticed things are missing. “Looking round with a sudden thought, from terrace on which I rested for a while, I started to realise that there were no small houses to be seen. Apparently the single house and possibly even the household had vanished. Here and there among the greenery were places like buildings, but the houses and cottage, which form the characteristic features of our own English landscape had disappeared. Communism”
As he continues exploring he notices an Eloi drowning and everyone else noticed the Eloi drowning but carried on as if nothing had happened, the time traveller then saves her from drowning. He doesn’t understand why they didn’t help. The Elois name was Weena, she is the last character in the book to have been named. The time traveller then goes to dinner with the Elois. And sees the Eloi as the culmination of mankind, living in splendour amongst flowery gardens, fountains, and statues. There “were no signs of struggle, neither social nor economical”. He found that that Eloi only ate fruit for sustenance, they interacted and slept in large communal halls. However, upon closer inspection, the Time Traveller realises that the halls and buildings are in a state of disrepair, with broken windows, and a general dilapidated look. He also notices that there are no businesses, or any type of machinery above ground. At this point, he begins to see the Eloi as not an evolution of man, but kind of a step back. They seem to have the mental age of a four - five-year old children. Meanwhile he tries to learn the language which the Elois speak, and try to teach them some English but they do not want to learn or teach him. “I saw mankind housed in splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged in no toil.”
The time traveller had then found out who the morlocks were, he comes across them living underground. He discovers a well and hears a thudding sound from a type of engine but can’t see hardly any factories. “A peculiar feature, which presently attracted my attention, was the presence of certain circular wells, several, as it seemed to me, of a very great depth.” “In all of them I heard a certain sound: a thud, thud, and thud like the beating of some engine.”
He assumed it is an aristocracy, the morlocks who do all the work and the Elois controlled them. He goes down the well and notices flesh and bones of an animal but he hasn’t seen any animals. He then comes to an understanding that the morlocks are the ones in charge and the Elois are their cattle. “These Eloi were mere fatted cattle, which the ant-like morlocks preserved and preyed upon – probably saw to the breeding of.” He thinks this is cannibalism two races from one.
That shows contempt visions of the old Victorian times. The morlocks were represented as the servants, and the Elois were compared to the rich people. H. G wells were trying to state the fact that if this class division had carried on as it was continuing then it would end very nasty.
They didn’t want to save Weena from drowning earlier because they have no value for life, and sooner or later they will be eaten by the morlocks. The Time Traveller comes to the realisation that all the Eloi’s have is an illusion of freedom. They are merely food for the Morlocks, who keep them placated. He refers to this relationship as one of farmer and their cattle, where the cows are blissfully unaware of the fact that they are food for the farmers. He also sees the two races as the eventual result of the split between Capitalists and the Labourers. When he journeys below and discovers a large underground world of machinery and metal, he relates this to his time, and how there is an increasing trend to build things underground, such as transit systems, restaurants, and shops – things that are less ornamental and more functional. This evolution seems to suggest to him that the working class has become the underworld dwellers, while the rich upper class has evolved into a playful, but almost idiotic race of beautiful, fragile dolls. The Time Traveller states his theory of this progress in the following statement: So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure, comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. The Morlocks were forced underground, while the Eloi had the surface as their garden and playground. The Time Traveller suddenly sees this progression as not the evolution of mankind, but the evolution of class division. He even suggests that such a division is taking place in his time already, stating that: “Even now, does not an East End worker live in such artificial conditions as to be practically cut off from the natural surface of the earth? This suggests that the Time Traveller, a reflection of H.G. Wells, sees class division as something bad, something that could lead to an insurmountable gulf between the rich and poor. The Time Traveller, then, sees the fate of the Eloi and Morlocks as something which could happen (and is starting to happen, in his time) to mankind. They are not fussed about knowledge, which is why they didn’t want to learn the English language. The time traveller found this difficult to overcome because in the Victorian times they was accomplishing and trying to discover more.
The time traveller then continues travelling into the future, and he could see the earth ending because of the effects of global warming. The global warming had not even been discovered in the Victorian times and yet H.G Wells was thinking forward once again.
The time traveller then returns home he won’t sit down to dinner with his friends until he has had a wash because in the Victorian times this is what they considered to be in a lower class, not being clean.
Throughout this essay I have explored the humanity in the time machine and have related it to the social and historical influences that would have affected H.G Wells at the time it was written.