'The Time Machine' by H.G.Wells - review

I am currently reading a science Fiction novel called ‘The Time Machine’ by H.G.Wells. I understand the Science Fiction Genre to be literary works based on real and unreal science. My own definition of the Science Fiction Genre would be looking into the future to see what technological and scientific advances there may. Advances which will affect our society, the behaviour of individuals and how we live. In modern day, Science fiction is a very popular kind of imaginative literature. Science Fiction is the genre that asks ‘ What if?’ It is a genre to infinite possibilities.

By ‘Science Fiction’ I mean Jules Verne, H.G.Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story. A charming and romanced intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic visions. A few modern examples of popular Science Fiction films is ‘Terminator, The Rise of The Machines’, ‘I robot’ which is based on machinery and hit the box office records. This shows us that Science Fiction Genre is even popular today.

The connection between the writer H.G.Wells and the Science Fiction Genre was that H.G.Wells was a philosopher who predicted the future before it actually happened. He was also a pioneer. Each of the first four novels he wrote dealt with fantastic storylines involving scientific understandings, the future and machinery. Because of these novels he was considered the father of Science Fiction.

H.G.Wells uses scientific language to blind his audience with science, to set the tone of his novel and make what follows more believable. He uses words like ‘Geometry of four dimensions’, etc. H.G.Wells also uses scientific language because he is writing to the leisured Victorian class who are highly educated. The Time Traveller believes that if the characters such as the Mayor and the Psychologist believe him, everyone else should because they were all from different social classes. Wells also uses it to bring his novel to life and keep his readers interested. I think that there were no women at the dinner table because the Time Traveller thought that only men would be interested and women weren’t given equal rights.

H.G.Wells was influenced by Charles Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’, which talks about how humans have evolved. Not only the scientific thinking of his time, but also the political influenced Wells. H.G. Wells wrote fully conscious of two distinct agendas: social change and evolution. The social divide a huge influence on Wells. He didn’t like the fact that leisured classes relied on the working class. He also didn’t like it that some of the upper class people took advantage of the working class people. Another thing that influenced him was the Industrial Revolution. Which was when most people lived in cities and complex machines produced most of their needs. It was a fundamental change in the way goods were produced and altered the way people lived. The Industrial Revolution is a major turning point in world history.

In the time when ‘The Time Machine’ was written, so many people were interested in Science Fiction because everyone wanted to know about the future. They wondered what the future was like and what was ahead of them. In the 19th Century, new things were invented such as phones, cameras and radios etc. So everyone was wondering how technology would be like in the future. What new inventions would come? They also wanted to see how far they could push technological progress. Victorians were almost obsessed with becoming better people and building a better life for themselves and serials mirrored these beliefs that progress was slow but sure to come. Victorians thought of society as capable of achieving great things. The leisured class were board and had nothing to do, but the working class had a lot to do to keep them busy so they didn’t have much time to think about the future.

I know that the novel was written in Victorian time because some of the words that are in the text are no longer used today. For example, the writer uses words like ‘askew’, ‘sconce’ and ‘stupor’. Also some of the things that were mentioned in the novel are no longer used today, for instance, ‘tobacco jar’. I also know that the text was written in Victorian time because the language of the text sounds posh and he uses complex words. I also know by the sentence structure, the style of his writing and the way the text was written. Victorian stories are very descriptive and like most 19th Century novels, ‘The Time Machine’ was written in first person.

The future of mankind is brought to light in this classic science fiction novel ‘The Time Machine’. After taking a trip hundreds of thousands of years into the future. Humans have evolved into two races: the gentle and simple-minded Eloi and the hideous, carnivorous Morlocks. The Morlocks steal the Time Travellers machine and the Time Traveller manages to rescue it, he disappears and whizzes further into the future where he sees the end of the world. The Time Traveller return to the 19th century tired and exhausted and tells his colleagues what he saw. The next day he leaves again, ...

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The Time Traveller is a man of wit and intelligence. He is well versed in all the major theories of his day. He has a sense of humour about almost everything he encounters, he accepts his friends’ scepticism and is very bright and honest. He is very expressed about his ideas ‘lucid frankness’. Whatever he said was so hard for them to believe. “Are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick – like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?” This says to us that that wasn’t the first time the host had fooled them. I notice at times he hides his cleverness. ‘Suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush.’ All the guests felt that the Time Traveller was a sneaky person. They had doubts about him and they didn’t trust his demonstrations.

When H.G.Wells travels to 802701, the novel tells us that time travel is like ‘the flapping of a black wing’. The protagonist described time travel to be exactly like the ride he had on a switchback. It tells us that he was going too fast to be conscious of moving things, ‘helpless headlong motion’. I think this also means that at the speed he was going made him dizzy and it felt like he was on a roller coaster ride and also that he was going too fast that he looked at things but couldn’t take in the information. The novel also tells us that the Time Traveller saw ‘the sun hopping swiftly across the sky’. Another thing he saw was ‘trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now green, they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away’. This says to us that he was going rapidly into different seasons, so the trees were changing and puffing into different forms and the colour of the leaves were changing every second.

When the Time Traveller describes what he saw, H.G.wells builds tension here by using some short sentences to make the readers impatient and make them think about what the new and wonderful world may be like. I noticed that the Time traveller uses every day words to describe the future he goes into, words that he would use in his day to make what he saw more believable. The language he uses helps us to build a future. He uses a wide and varied vocabulary as he describes the future.

The Time Travellers first impressions are of a utopia. The first thing he sees is the Elois. They are adults but have child like demeanours, they experience of joy through the simplest things. The words that the Time Traveller uses to describe them are ‘very beautiful’; he describes them as ‘graceful creatures’, ‘frail’ and ‘fading’. He compares them to ‘beautiful kind of consumptive’ to show they are beautiful on the outside, but there is something hidden in the inside. This was a negative clue and a warning to him that there was more to the future than meets the eye. He describes them as ‘exquisite creatures’, which are innocent and playful. The creatures seemed to dwell in perfect harmony. The word Eloi comes from the word ‘elite’ which I understand to be a group of people regarded as superior and therefore makes them favoured, the best of the pack.

Although they seemed perfect, they had an ‘intelligence of a 5 year old’ they asked if he had ‘come from the sun in a thunderstorm.’ For asking such that sort of question shows their stupidity and lack if intelligence. The only member of the Eloi the Time Traveller gets to know is Weena who exhibits all the good and bad characteristics of this future race who are the evolved members of the upper class.

The Time Traveller expected the people to be incredibly intelligent, but they only seemed strange. They showed little interest in the time machine and their interests lasted only for a short time. The Time Traveller was surprised to find that the future did not show the progress that he had expected. He felt very ‘disappointed’ and felt as if he had ‘built the time machine in vain’. He felt that there was no value or significance and the time machine and it was useless and futile.

The world had changed from a proud strong race of humans to a weak and wasteful society. All the things they needed to have power and control over, things they dreamt about and desired finally came true. “One triumph…and carried forward” they had power over nature, such as cloning, technology, selective breeding etc. ‘The air was free from gnats, the world free from weed or fungi’; this tells us that they had gotten rid of them. The things they didn’t like in the world or weren’t happy with, they got rid of and improved their favourite plants and animals. “They engaged in no toil” There was no more survival of the fittest and there was no type of aggressiveness or competitive behaviour.

Because of all the changes to the world, their strength had become weakness because there was no more violence, so they didn’t need strength to protect themselves. They became lazy because they got used to doing nothing. They became dumb because they didn’t go to school and the world was all laid out them. There was no more love for each other and their children. There was no need to protect their children because there was no danger, nothing to protect them from and they didn’t know how to. They didn’t seem to care or worry about each other, like the way they would have let Weena drown and they didn’t know what to do. Their utopian civilisation had made them weak, physically and mentally; they were beautiful but lazy, frail and stupid creatures that could nothing for themselves.

The Time traveller notices that the Elois were afraid of one thing. The dark. Later on he finds out that it was because of the Morlocks who are the second group of species.

The Time Traveller describes the Morlocks appearance as ‘bleached’ and ‘little apelike figure’. The Time Traveller uses words like ‘wild beasts’ and ‘obscene’ to describe them. The word obscene, which he uses, gives me the impression that they were disgustingly filthy and that they were offensive and insecure. They resembled the primitive stages of earlier mankind and were like ‘a human spider’ and ‘human rats’. Rats, spiders and snakes etc are hated creatures on earth. I think the Time Traveller is trying to tell us that the Morlocks were awful, very scary frightening creatures. Also people would have been afraid of them, just how they are afraid of spiders. The word Morlock sounds to me like war. It gives me the impression that they were locked up and the word ‘mor’ in Latin means death.

Comparing The Morlocks to the Eloi, I notice that there are big differences between them. The Morlocks seem to be the opposite of the Eloi. The Time Traveller discusses the inevitable conclusion of the gulf between the Capitalists and the Labourers. The conflict between the Morlocks and the Eloi reflects the division between the classes at the end of the 19th century. You could split the Elois and the Morlocks as ‘the Haves and the Have nots’. The Time Traveller states his theory of this progress in the haves, pursuing pleasure, comfort and beauty and below undergrounds the have-nots, the workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. He saw the progression as ‘The Evolution of class Division’.

The Morlocks periodically round up the more appetizing specimens and slaughter them for dinner tables. The Eloi were like fatted calves, kept well and healthy, only to be seized and eaten when the Morlocks grew hungry. The Morlocks represent an exaggerated form of a 19th century class- this time the workers. Though they are good at their jobs, and they are stronger, both groups are less human than we are now.

Although the Morlocks are the labourers, the Morlocks have turned the tables around and ruled over the fairer upper world cousins. ‘Ages ago. Man had thrust his brother man out of ease and his sunshine. And now that new brother has come back-changed’.

I think this quotation means that the upper class through the working class underground, making life hard and difficult for them and out of the reach of the sun. But now, the working class has come back ready for revenge and punishment and have evolved into a new species, the Morlock. The descendants of the upper class still living an easy and wonderful life, have control over everything, but power belongs to the descendants of the working class, the Morlocks. They have seized power and allowed them to live above ground, but they take revenge when they are hungry.

The human race in this new world has split into two distinct species, which have adapted to their environment. All humans were one until they evolved into two species because of the social divide between the two classes. As time has gone, the two species have moved further apart and have changed into two totally different things. The Time Machine is a futuristic tale that is served as a warning of what would come if humans carried on the way they were. The book tackles the points of human culture and a warning to change people for the better. H.G.Wells expresses his views on humanity, the society and the direction he saw the world going.

It appears to me that the message H.G.Wells is trying to give us is to look at what would happen to humanity if we do not change. He is trying to tell us that instead of creating a divided society, which in the end dooms all members, we should aim to create a society that is capable of lasting and improving and not self-destructing. ‘The Time machine’ is wells’ socialist warning on what will befall mankind if capitalism

(A comical system based on private ownership) continues to exploit the workers from the benefits of the rich and that the actions of the past will have consequences in the future.

After escaping the Morlocks, the machine takes him further into the future. The sun had changed into a sad red colour and was staying in the exact same position. The Time Traveller continues on his machine into the year 30,000,000 where there is no form of life, just snow. He witnesses an eclipse and sees an ugly creature the size of a football with tentacles. The world was silent. The world was a distopia. The Time Traveller’s final view of the far future frightened him. This horrifying impact caused him to leave before anything happened. The language used to describe the future gives us the impression the Time Traveller was disappointed to find that the far future had no human life.

According to the Time Traveller and H.G.Wells writing, in the far future, humans will

no longer exist. H.G.wells does not believe life is a cycle. Most people believe that

‘Nature and evolution are a cycle.’ Just as H.G.Wells, I disagree because how could

we return when there are no humans to start the cycle again.

I learn from the novel ‘The Time Machine’ that the world is continually changing, developing and adapting. I learn that the world is evolving, into new species and that we are not the last. I think that us humans will evolve again. I think we will change into something else further in the future and the world would become more advanced with technology. I learn that class division could change us if we continued to separate and group ourselves and that evolution could entirely eliminate humanity. It teaches us that what the future holds for us is amazing, just as long as we don’t misuse it. We learn that having the world ready laid out for us could make us worse.

Looking at the future helps us to think more carefully about the present. It helps us to think a step further in everything I do. Knowing how the future is like, and knowing that it is negative, will change the way we behave in our society. It helps us to think about not pushing technology so far and improving our world. It would help us to think more carefully about the social divide, the way we treat each other and it helps us think about treating each other equally. In the future, I think that there would be war between different religions and different races. Also that the world will divide into different groups. I think that H.G.Wells is an ‘agent of social change’, he was trying to chance everyone and trying to get us to change our ways.

‘The Time Machine’ is still popular today because people do think about the future and how it would be like. It is also popular today because some of the things that were mentioned in the novel are happening and even today and people are still inventing things. Last of all, it is popular because people still ask questions about the future.

Wells prophetic visions have been up to date because there is a social divide today.

Later on he became known as "The Man Who Invented Tomorrow" because he fore saw overcrowded cities, computers, televisions to tell the news, tanks and weapons used in wars and bombing of cities. He saw them out of control.

The things I liked about the novel was that it was short and straightforward. I liked that it was old-fashioned language because it got me to think more about the words he uses. It was a wonderful and enlightening story that redeems itself. His descriptions are very descriptive and effective because you can feel the curiosity of the Time Traveller. Last of all, I like the way he structures his novel like a scientific theory, as if he is a scientist.

The things I didn’t like about the story is the way it ends. He goes back into the future to get proof but never returns. The story leaves you hanging and makes you ask yourself questions like, Will he ever return with proof? Will they believe him? I also didn’t like it that Weena had to die and last of all, I felt that H.G.Wells was bias and was leaning slightly towards the leisured calls, with the way he describes the Elois and the Morlocks. The Time Traveller calls the Eloi ‘my graceful children’ and calls the Morlocks ‘bleached, obscene, nocturnal thing’. It got me asking myself, why would H.G.Wells describe the rich people as beautiful and the poor people as ugly if he wanted the world to change?

On a whole, I think there is a lot to learn from ‘The Time Machine’. H.G.Wells uses strong language in his novel. In reference to the question ‘How does H.G.Wells use language to teach us about his visions of the future?’ H.G.Wells chooses his words very carefully. When he describes the Elois and the Morlocks, he makes a contrast between them. When H.G.Wells travels into the future, the words that he uses gives the impression that the world was scary and horrible, which adds to his reasons for writing ‘The Time Machine’, as a warning of the social divide. I notice that the language that H.G.Wells uses to describe the future he goes into is very negative, e.g. ‘apocalypse’ and ‘annihilation of the human race’. The language he uses is fantastic and makes you want to read on. The descriptions in this novel are wondrous to the point out that no novel I have read could possibly portray. H.G.Wells ideas are very well expressed and the words that he uses are quite complex. I think that ‘The Time Machine is an excellent book and I would recommend it to anyone.

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