All Throughout The Time Machine, H.G Wells uses a lot of description. This becomes very apparent, even in the beginning of the novel. "His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated." and ."..said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair." Both of these quotes help to bring the characters alive and give off a certain personality trait that could be used throughout the entire book. Another literary device that is used throughout the book is when the author refers to a character but doesn't give him a true name, rather just an adjective. This is shown by the character given the name of the "Medicine Man." This is to show that while they are import to the development of the story, they are not important themselves except for the main roles that they play, like the Medicine Man, or the Journalist, or the Psychologist. In medias res is another literary device that H.G. Wells uses. I think that this device really helps to bring you into the story. It also helps to show how a character acts before really meeting him. I also think by doing this it makes you kind of included in the story as well as a way to capture the ready and make them want to read more. When a reader starts a book and they start in medias res it makes the reader want to figure out what they were talking about and by that point the author has captivated the reader
The time machine novel takes the structure of an embedded narrative which is a story or concept contained within another story that comprises the majority of the text. I think Wells chose this as it allows easier interpretations and gives a view from two different perspectives to enhance assist the readers understanding. The Embedded narrative also represents different view points towards progress. The time traveller is regarded to as moving like “the dance of the shadows” this metaphor allows us to visualize his movements and depicts it to be interesting to look at. The time travellers personality is one of a ‘jokers’ attitude, someone who the people fail to take seriously due to his liability to trickery. So when he is serious, the people around him are not sure whether or not to place their trust in him. Especially when he came up with the idea of time travel, as nobody knew whether to take the possibility seriously as it came from someone who they knew was found to ‘pull a fast one’ leaving the people involved frustrated out of their own foolishness in believing such a cheery individual. Therefore such a statement was received with shock and a sense of denial. The Eloi’s are portrayed 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 hand-made. Wells portrays the Morlocks as “stooping white creatures” living in the “impenetrable darkness.” This description reflects upon the working class citizens of that time, whose backs were hunched due to constant hard labour in small, cramped conditions such as mines underground which exaggerates the fact that the Morlocks lived in darkness underground. The Morlocks are also depicted to be less than civilised as Wells says “Rayless obscurity” they allude to prehistoric forms of human beings e.g. Darwin's theory suggests we are the descendants of primates and the Morlocks have similar characteristics. Therefore the time machine is an illustration of the Victorian era and follows on from wells' belief in Darwinism.
The novel gives us an insight on the symbiotic relationship between the upper class and the working class where the upper class provide jobs for working class in their factories and the working class provide the upper class with labour to allow them to experience life’s luxuries. The novel speculates
on the scientific development of the two classes into their own species so the upper class develop into these small, delicate and frail Eloi's and the working class develop into these stooping, powerful and large Morlocks. The novel also considers the scientific advances in technology through time travel. Wells directs questions at his Victorian society such as what will happen if we continue to allow the upper class to enjoy a life of aristocracy and the working class to endure a life of manual labour and what if the upper class become too dependent on the working class. These questions Wells asks challenges the life of each person living in the Victorian era by extrapolating events in everyday life and propelling them into the future causing problems.
Wells chose the science fiction genre as he was a man of knowledge and science intrigued him such as Darwinism. Wells attended the Norman school of science after winning a scholarship and he studied biology. Science fiction offered new insights into the four biggest questions: What is a human being? what is the universe? What is the place of a human being in the universe? and the most crucial of them all What If?... Many topics and issues raised during the 19th century arose awareness of these questions, such as Darwinism which was not accepted as it went against their religious beliefs. Science fiction enabled to inspire many people and many writers such as Mary Shelley who created “Frankenstein” inspired by experiments involving electricity and Stevenson’s “Dr Jekyll and Hyde” considered the fate awaiting men of science who dabbled in newly created drugs. The authors of Victorian science fiction novels were from very similar backgrounds to that of other Victorian writers: they were educated and middle class. However science fiction writing was largely ignored by the traditional publishers of the period as it was viewed with suspicion. It seemed to be trying to undermine the existing order of society and challenged its readers to look at the more negative, long term prospects of the world they lived in. The time machine fits into the science fiction genre as is asks us what if we carry on relying on other will we end up like the Eloi? and what if we could travel in time? Etc. It takes the symbiotic relationship between the two separate classes and propels them into more depth with more extreme end results. Therefore the time machine is an illustration of the Victorian era.
Many Victorians were against science fiction novels during the time Wells wrote his novel. This was because the ideas and beliefs associated with science fiction disagreed with people’s beliefs in God, so the Victorians wouldn't have 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 the film of “the time machine” which was made in 2002, and the director Simon Wells made many changes to the original story. Firstly he chose to add in a romantic element to the film in order to give the time traveller a motivation, and purely for Hollywood purposes. This was different in the novel because, the time traveller only built the time machine out of curiosity where as in the film, it was to be able to go back in time and get his girl friend that died. I think the film was more effective because it was more appealing, and interesting to watch, also because of the new interpretations such as the romantic elements, the story was able to make more sense and we were able to sympathize with him due to the modernisations. Simon Wells also 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. The novel possesses much more description and contains an embedded narrative where the narrator is writing a story that has been verbally told to him and the narrative has no more detail than you might expect from a story told to you by a friend.
In conclusion I agree with the statement that Wells illustrated life in Britain at the end of the Victorian Era. I think this 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 also included all this but extrapolated them in other ways so that his novel was different to the Victorian era yet somewhat familiar as it was an extract of Victorian life extended into the distant future. Finally, it reflects upon the illuminated Victorian thinking. Even if time travel is not possible and we can not access the fourth dimension of time one man thought hard enough and asked us all, What If?
By Ryan Scuffil
