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going to happen to the human race during the future of society. He is also searching a modern utopia, one of happiness and delightfulness, where people can live in harmony. However on his quest this fantasy becomes a nightmare when he learns of the world in the future. Which is one of a failed utopia but is rather a “dystopian nightmare”(Partington 4). What he has been looking for has not been answered in the future and he must keep on going which will not help his search for answers any more than his time her in the year eight hundred two thousand, seven hundred and one.
During his ride into the future he sees many interesting and astonishing things that totally astonishes him. From his machine he sees “huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns”(Wells 27). He also watches towers collapse, the sky turn gray, watch it rain and snow and also watch things grow all from the comfort of his time machine. Eventually he realized that he should witness this first hand. So he entered a new world, “an utopian society”(Partington 3) but to his amaze he found nothing like he expected to witness. He panicked and went back to his machine because the Time Traveler was overwhelmed with this new civilization. Eventually when he arrives in the year 802,701 he finds these humanoid like creatures, which he, the Time Traveler, calls Eloi. They are frail and have a certain “childlike ease”(Wells 30) and have small red lips. They however, are weird to look at, but are extremely friendly and they realize that the “Time Traveler has no cruel intentions toward these frail childlike
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creatures”(McConnell 5). The Time Traveler believes that these creatures are direct descendants of humans and rule this planet. However he comes soon to find out that there are creatures that the Eloi call Morlocks. They are “cruel, vicious and uninhibited creatures with a burning desire for the flesh of the Eloi.”(Kumar 3), these disgusting creatures have hardly any eyes, a big flat nose, and long dreaded hair, almost ape like features. They are also nocturnal hunters and the Eloi are very afraid of them, the Time Traveler is however amazed by them. He believes that these Morlocks are indeed subterranean races, which are fast, strong and incredibly agile.
During the novel the Tim Traveler comes across these creatures of this new world, which are the Eloi and the Morlocks. His first hypothesis is when he first encounters the Eloi he believes that they are the sole descendants of the modern human race. The reason he believes this is because of the fact that they look like modern day humans and they have all the signatures of a human being in a “pastoral community”(Huntington 4). From their eyes, nose, lips and hair they look very similar to the modern human of today. His second hypothesis is a sound one but flawed because of the fact that he does not know the nature of this new world. He after somewhat proving that indeed the Eloi were descendants of the human race is that he then considers the Eloi the lords of a class divided earth in which they hold the subterranean Morlocks in subjection. The reason he believes this is because at the time he does not know how powerful the Morlocks truly are
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and how they use the Eloi as food for there survival, and how they engage in a “cannibalistic right”(Beilharz 2) for the survival of this much under civilized race and but highly physically developed race. His third hypothesis is that in fact then he realizes that this world is a class divided earth on the verge of Morlockian uprising. The reason he believes this and also the other hypothesis, which is that the Morlocks were the ascending race on the earth at that time, is because he sees all the carnage that the Morlocks bring. He finally realizes that indeed these Morlocks are the superior race and also finds it ironical that the Eloi are the weaker of the two but are living atop the Morlocks. The reason the Morlocks are superior, at least in the Time Traveler’s mind, is because of the pure and simple fact that the Morlocks are stronger than the Eloi. The only thing in the Time Traveler’s mind that the Eloi have over the Morlocks is that they are a much more intelligent race who can think for themselves who in the Morlocks case seemed to be controlled by something much different. Also the Time Traveler also believes that he is witnessing a battle between good of the upper earth, with all its beauty and simplicity, against the darkness and cannibalistic nature of the evil underground of the earth. The Eloi in the Time Traveler’s mind are the good and righteous people that the “Time Traveler was looking for in a utopian society”(Partington 2). While he believes that the Morlocks are the cruel monsters that are destroying the stunning planet and so called utopia that he has arrived at.
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In the Time Travelers mind he believed that this was a fight between the strong and the weak, which the strong were winning.
He after finding his time machine traveled far more into the future. He would witness and be attacked by these huge giant crabs that had huge claws, mouths, eyes and who were very violent towards him. He however escapes from this violent place and then he goes farther into the future. Where to his amazement is a barren and hot wasteland with a huge black blob wit tentacles in his eyesight. Also as he looks up he sees that another planet was eclipsing the sun and that it seemed to be falling towards the earth. After he sees this he returns home because he cannot bear to go any further because he fears that there will be no planet left to explore. As he returns his guests are waiting him for dinner. He is very rude towards them and is very hungry and thirsty and refuses to tell them where he has been all this time. He then tells them that he needs to go clean up and then continues to tell them his tales. Afterwards everyone leaves and he gets on his machine and goes into the future and never again returns to his time.
All in all the Time Traveler was a strong and very curious genius who in his search for truth came across agony, pain and also a sense of truth. He figured out his question and also proved everyone wrong who doubted him by traveling in his fourth dimension of time.
Criticism
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Wells, H.G The Time Machine Tom Doherty Associates, 1992
- Beilharz, Peter. Labour’s Utopias: Bolshevism, Fabianism, Social Democracy. London: Routledge, 1993
- Huntington, John. The Logic of Fantasy: H.G. Wells and Science Fiction. New York: Columbia UP, 1982
- Kumar, Krishan. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times. London: Blackwell, 1991
- McConnell, Frank. The Science Fiction of H.G. Wells. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1981.
- Partington, John S. “The Death of the Static: H.G. Wells and the Kinetic Utopia”. Utopian Studies 11.2 (2000): 96-111
