H.G. Wells The Time Machine

A detailed Summary of H.G. Wells The Time Machine

The foretelling of societies downfall by

The downfall of a society can be caused by the lack of care and the thoughtlessness of the members within it. H.G. Wells tries to illustrate the perfect society and explain the realities that exist. The futurist society that he writes about is only perfect on the outside. When he explores the depths of this society it is only to unveil all the faults that exist. In The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Wells' does not try to foretell the future but, tries to warn society of it's possible downfalls if people continue to live with the attitudes and lifestyles of the present.

To begin, Wells illustrates how his Time Traveler gets the illusion of a perfect society by what he sees around . Wells places his Time Traveler in forward motion from 1895 AD to 802,701 AD. Upon arriving into the valley of the Thames in the year 802,701 AD his first impression of this society is " Disease, hardships and poverty were eliminated. Man's restless energy turned to art and for a time a great culture flourished"(Bennett 430). Wells, known for his social consciousness, gives the illusion of a perfect society free from all worry. The surrounding

Along with the realization that this society was far from perfect, the Time Traveler is faced with problems that are encountered in his travel through time. The Eloi were not the only people who inhabited this strange new world in 802,701 AD. The Time Travelers time machine is stolen. On his quest to retrieve it he encounters the Morlocks. He finds tunnels that look like ant hills and have a strange humming sound emerging from them, a mechanical humming sound of great engines. He sees a Morlock and describes it as being a dull white, with strange large grayish red eyes like those seen in night creatures. They had flaxen hair on their heads and down their backs, ugly in contrast to the appearance of the Eloi's. The Time Traveler now understood why the Eloi gathered together in the night. Probably from the belief that there is safety in numbers. "The Upper world people might have been favored Aristocracy and the Morlock their mechanical servants; but that had long since passed away" (Wells 71). The upper people had become the breeding stock of cattle for those who lived below ground. "So in the end above ground you have the Haves' pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty and below ground the Have nots, the workers getting continually adapted to the condition of their labor" (Wells 61). In this future time the ones above ground (Eloi) become the food of those below the ground dwellers (Morlocks). The Morlocks had become the masters and the Eloi there slaves. Almost a complete and total role reversal. Now the Time Traveler is also at their mercy because they have stolen his only method of returning to his time, his time machine.

An Eloi named Wenna was drowning, while the others just watched, the Time Traveler took it upon himself to save her. He befriended her and together they went exploring this new world and this is when the Time Traveler realizes, " No doubt the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the out come of the last surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind before it settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which it lived - the flourish of that triumph which began the last great peace. This has ever been the fate of energy in security it takes to art and to eroticism and then languor and decay " ( Wells 90 ). At this point the Time Traveler saw a society that had once peeked in all it's glory and now it's decaying downfall. He realized that all the beauty and perfection he imagined was in fact not as it appeared. He realized " strength is the out come of need, security sets a premium on feebleness" (Wells 37 ). All the beauty around him led to the downfall of this society. Man had all that they needed and became content. They felt no room for improvement and no desire to strive for anything more.

In conclusion, "The Time Machine was thus the first well executed, imaginatively coherent picture of a future worse than the present, a picture at the same time anti-utopian in

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Approximate Word count = 2017
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels