The author, H.G. Wells was famous for his works of sci-fi, other than “The Time Machine”, he had done other science fiction novels such as, “The war of the worlds” (1898), and the “Invisible Man” (1897). All his science fictions relate in one-way or another, because he uses some sort of fantasy in his novels, examples such as in “The Time Machine”, Wells invents a time machine which hasn’t been invented yet in reality, and in the “Invisible Man” novel, the man can become invisible, which is not yet possible in reality. But in my opinion these fantasies interest the readers and maybe that’s why Wells cleverly introduces these powers of invention.
Many things influenced H.G. Wells when he wrote his novel, such as rapid progress of machines and new inventions in the Industrial Revolution.
Wells was inspired to write about “The Time Machine” by the speed of new technology, other things that influenced him was the differences between the rich and poor in the Victorian era, which he used as an example in his science fiction novel; the rich were the Eloi and the poor were the Morlocks.
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution also inspired Wells to write his novel. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is the popular idea that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor. Many people during the Victorian era didn’t believe this theory, yet Wells used this idea in his story.
In H.G. Wells’s novel, he describes the Eloi’s appearance as different to current human beings, four feet tall, innocent and child-like, this can be seen in the line: “…a certain childlike ease.” This suggests that the Eloi’s are non-threatening and that they are immature. Wells also describes the Eloi’s as an attractive race, you can see this in the quote: “…Dresden china type of prettiness” these shows the Eloi are so pretty that they look like they have been made. Wells uses Darwin’s theory of Evolution as an example of how the human race would look like in the future, because Darwin’s Theory of Evolution states that all human beings descended from monkeys that are believed to be our ancient ancestors. So Wells uses this theory in his novel as an example of how the human race would develop into the Eloi overtime in the future.
During the 1800s, as people moved to the cities in Victorian England, violent crime increased as well, an example is Jack the Ripper. Wells was concerned with this and so included a violent theme in the novel; the Eloi needed the morlocks to maintain machinery and the morlocks needed the Eloi for food; therefore they have a violent symbiotic relationship. This storyline links with the relationship between the working classes and the educated classes of the Victorian age because the working classes and the upper classes had little social connections, yet they needed each other – without the educated classes, the ideas of the Industrial Revolution wouldn’t have happened, and without the working classes these ideas wouldn’t have taken hold through mass production; therefore both classes needed each other in order to survive, this is also a symbiotic relationship.
Many Victorians were against science fiction novels during the time Wells wrote his novel. This was because science fictions disagree with people’s beliefs in God, so the Victorians would probably haven’t reacted well to the issue of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
The novel can be interpreted in different ways; an example of this would be in the film of “The Time Machine”. This film was made over two hundreds years after the actual novel was written. So the novel was written in the 1800s, and the film was made in the year 2000s. The director, Simon Wells made many changes to the original story. Firstly he chose to change how the Eloi and Morlocks should look, the appearance of the creatures in the film contradicts with the creatures described in the novel. The Eloi in the book are described as tiny (4ft), pale, delicate creatures, whilst in the film the Eloi are normal human size and all of them have tanned skin. For the Morlocks, the appearance are mainly same except for the fact that in the book the Morlocks are scared of any source of light and in the film the director shows the Morlocks are not scared of light because they come out from underground in broad daylight for their victim. In addition, the director also made a few changes to the storyline, such as in the novel, the time traveller returns home at the end of the story then disappears, whereas in the film the time traveller doesn’t go back home but stays in the future with the Eloi after defeating the Morlocks by destroying the time machine. The language the characters use in the film is more modern than the language used in the novel, this is because, the novel was written in the 1800s, which is a very long time ago from the film period, so the director modernised the old fashioned language as he knew people of this period wouldn’t understand the language of the Victorian era.
I think that the director decided to show the story in a different way because he probably considered that people wouldn’t want to watch the film in old fashion text, so that’s why he probably decided to change the storyline partially.
““The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells illustrates life in Britain at the end of the Victorian era”
I think I will agree with this statement to some extent, because H.G. Wells did use some examples to illustrate life in Britain from the things going on in the world around him, such as Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, the relationship between the rich and poor of the Victorian age and also Jack the Ripper which influenced him to write a violent theme in his novel. He included all this but interpreted them in other ways so that his novel wasn’t very similar to what he saw around him in Britain at the end of the Victorian era.
On the other hand, it could be argued that Wells was writing a pure imaginative text, whereby he intended to interest readers and was perhaps using some examples from the things happening in Britain during his time to help him, so therefore Wells might be contrasting real life with fantasy.
