How Does H.G Wells use language in the novel 'The Time Machine' to teach us about his vision of the future?

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 Julie Hammond 10CHI                                                                                07/05/2007

How Does H.G Wells use language in the novel ‘The Time Machine’ to teach us about his vision of the future?

H.G Wells wrote one of the first science fiction novels: ‘The Time Machine’. This was due to a premonition that he had about the future.

Science Fiction is a genre of fiction and film with an imaginary scientific, technological, or futuristic basis. Science fiction - deals with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals. It aims to shake up standard perceptions of reality through alternative realities, dystrophies, utopias and natural or man-made disasters.  

 

Early practitioners of science fiction were Jules Verne and H.G Wells. Examples of science fiction novels and films are: Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Frankenstein and Fifth Element. Another spectacular science – fiction movie called I Robot is based on our scientific progress in nana -technology. The recent smash hit clearly shows Sci-fi is still a popular genre in the modern day era.

 Wells was a pioneer of science fiction. His obsession with science led to him being the first man to write about Science in order to express his views about how scientific developments will potentially lead to an apocalyptic war.

 

Wells witnessed the conspicuous class distinctions of the late nineteenth century. He felt strongly about the social divide between the rich leisured classes and the working class. ‘The Time Machine’ portrays what he felt could happen to mankind as the divisive gap between the indolent rich and hard-working poor became wider.  

Wells was writing to an audience that was curious about the future. There was a rise in scientific intelligence in the 19th century following the Industrial Revolution. People of the 19th century began imagining what the future would become, if all the inventions created became more advanced. Thus Victorians believed Science – Fiction opened the possibility for an entire new range of advancements. People like Wells began writing and foreseeing what it would be like to travel to the future. A famous phrase, says; ‘The Future is now’. This was exactly what the people of Wells’ time ought to have thought.

 The audience distinguishes ‘The Time Machine’ as a novel written in the Victorian times. Through its use of language, compositions of words and phrases that are scarcely used or known in modern day, existing of the many are; ‘askew’, ‘stupor’ and ‘sconces.’ The introduction to the novel uses complex language to bewilder the audience. E.g. when the main character travels through time and foresees what as come of the future, he aims to baffle his Victorian audience. Wells uses ‘Scientific people’, such as the ‘Physiologist’ and the ‘Medical man’. To persuade his audience if scientific people believe his theory, then audience should consider what comes next is accurate.      

Wells structures his novel as one may express a scientific theory, using frequent language references to science: ‘three dimension’, ‘ dimensional geometry’, and ‘philosophical’. This indicates that science is a major constituent of the narrative. As the story progresses, Wells uses a different approach to unfold the time traveller’s journey. Wells goes on to explain his hypothesis of the evolution of the Elois and Morlocks to be descendants of the upper and lower class civilisation. Therefore the work of fiction sounds more like an academic theory than a story.

 

There is reason to believe that if the book were written today, at least one female companion would’ve been present at the time. The matter that no females were involved in the first chapters, shows us that the story was written in a time, when the male citizens was dominated the females. This may be because science was considered science a male hobby; as a result women were not allowed to join.

Not to forget there was no mention of any variety of electrical appliances, in the novel, although, it maintained a ‘fireplace’. This was common in homes, during the Victorian era. In accumulation, The Editor mentioned an old formation of British currency the ‘Shilling’.  This shows it was a Victorian novel.

The Time Machine begins with the time traveller demonstrating his ‘model’, which he claims, can travel through time. The Time Traveller returns from his travel to the future, telling the audience of his expedition. Explaining the outrageous feeling he felt, when he found himself in the year 802,701, and everything had changed, into a utopia. The new beings of the future seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony. The Time Traveller thought he could study these spectacular beings using theory of human evolution, unearth their secret and then return to his own time, until he discovered that his invention. Had been stolen by the inhabitants of the underworld (Morlocks).

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The protagonist is an extraordinary character that surprises both the readers and fellow characters. The Time Traveller is passionate about science and often uses his skills as a source of deception, ‘are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick – like that ghost last Christmas.’ This quotation shows he had fooled people in the past with his knowledge of science. The characters are unsure of his demonstration he has revealed to them, not knowing whether it is real or a scam.

The characters in ‘The Time Machine’ think the protagonist is ‘one of those men who are too ...

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