FREE ESSAY ON TIME MACHINE

TIME MACHINE

The Time Machine Herbert George Wells was born in 1866 in Bromley, Kent, a few miles from
London, the son of a house-maid and gardener. Wells died in 1946, a wealthy and famous
author, having seen science fiction become a recognized literary form and having seen the
world realize some of science fiction's fondest dreams and worst fears. Wells mother
attempted to find him a safe occupation as a draper or chemist. Wells had a quick mind
and a good memory that enabled him to pass subjects by examination and win a scholarship
to the Normal School of Science, where he stayed for three years and, most importantly,
was exposed to biology under the famous Thomas H. Huxley. Wells went into teaching and
writing text books and articles for the magazines that were of that time. In 1894 he
began to write science-fiction stories. -James Gunn Wells vision of the future, with its
troglodytic Morlocks descended from the working class of his day and the pretty but
helpless Eloi devolved from the leisure class, may seem antiquated political theory. It
emerged out of the concern for social justice that drew Wells to the Fabian Society and
inspired much of his later writing, but time has not dimmed the fascination of the
situation and the horror of the imagery. The Time Machine brought these concerns into his
fiction. It, too, involved the future, but a future imagined with greater realism and in
greater detail than earlier stories of the future. It also introduced, for the first time
in fiction, the notion of a machine for traveling in time. In this novel the Time Machine
by H. G. Wells, starts with the time traveler trying to persuade his guest's the theory
of the fourth dimension and even the invention. He tries to explain the fourth dimension
before he shows them the time machine so they don't think of him as a magician. H. G.
Wells uses details about the fourth dimension to teach the reader the theory about it to
capture your attention. Also Wells character the time traveler says Scientific people,
Know very well that time is only a kind of space. In this quote he is clearly using
persuasion tactics. He tries to attack there consious by saying that, scientific people
know that this is only a kind of space. He says this in hopes that they will believe what
he says just because other intelligent people believe the theory. This is a very
primitive but still an effective way to try to persuade people. The idea is because many
people believe it, so it must be true. The people he is trying to persuade are of 19th
century thinking and well to do people and they are competitive amongst other well to do
people so if other rich and intelligent people believe this fourth dimension theory so
the time traveler hopes this will motivate them to learn about it. The Characters in the
book Time Machine are The time traveler, Filby, the psychologist, and the provincial
mayor. Later the silent man and the editor come in to play. Filby is described as an
argumentative person with red hair. He has another label that Wells puts on him; he call
him the young man. The psychologist also has another label; he is the medical man. The
time traveler is described briefly when the group of intellects head down the corridor to
the laboratory. He uses his queer broad head in silhouette. When the arrive at the
machine's location it is described as Parts were made of nickel, parts of ivory, parts
had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. He probably chose these characters
as witnesses because they hold higher education and people would believe them from there
reputations. The psychologist would be beneficiary in convincing the other that its not a
hoax because he is aware of human behavior. The provincial mayor is also an intelligent
man and the people elected him so if he is to believe that this works then many people
would follow him. Filby is another character but never talks about his standing in
society it could be his friend because he did wink at the time traveler or maybe he is
not because he disputed the time traveler's time machine in his face and behind his back.
H. G. Wells uses two other characters that come to dinner to meet the time traveler. The
main character comes back from the future. The medical doctor and the provincial mayor
are accompanied by the editor or known as the journalist, and the silent man. The editor
uses three names to describe his guest's; Blank, Dash, and Chose. These names are
mentioned but they are never given a designation so there is no way to figure out which
one is the mayor, psychologist, or the silent man. The editor shows some disbelief but
goes ahead listening to the story and is a little eager. He may just wanted to get a
story to report in the newspaper that someone has claimed to have gone to the future and
back. They all agree that the time traveler can tell his story without interruption
because he is wary with exhaustion and has no tolerance to answer questions or be accused
as a liar or a quack. He begins his story by telling that he has lived eight days...such
days as no human has ever lived before!. Next he is in his laboratory working on his time
machine trying to complete it before Friday. He completes it that morning. He is delayed
to the ivory rod that was an inch to long so he had to get it remade. The time traveler
begins his journey to the future. At first he didn't know if anything was happening yet
for this machine was untested. For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me.
Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so
past ten; now it was nearly half-past three!. This part in the novel is his most detailed
explanation to capture the readers imagination and to fully support the illusion of time
travel. He tells of many details such as his maid Mrs. Watched came in the laboratory and
moved like a rocket around it. He explains the time traveling experience as a since of
falling and the speed is so great that it feels like any minute you will smash into
another object. All these details suggest that its not a comfortable ride especially when
he said I remarked indeed a clumsy swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to
account. There is evidence that the laboratory and the time traveler's house was torn
down when he saw the brief picture of scaffolding. A snail went across the room at a
speed that his eyes could not keep up with. After his house was gone he was in the open
air and saw huge buildings erect themselves all around him. Wells was right in his
assumption about these buildings because skyscrapers do exist in our time. He saw all the
vegetation grow and die. The moon ran its cycles and the sun shot across the sky so fast
that it was hurting the time traveler's eyes. The time traveler witness the season's
changing from snow to spring in a continuos cycle. He thought of stopping but he was
afraid of jamming his molecules and the object's molecules that occupied that space at
that particular time. Here he goes back to science and with some added element of
chemistry. The main character explains that if his time machine occupied the same space
at the same time as another object then the molecules would fuse together causing a
chemical reaction and the ending result would be an explosion. Even with this threat he
takes the risk out of curiosity building some suspense in the book. He stops and is flung
from his machine and is met by a thunderstorm. This is realistic in this book because in
the UK it rains a lot so there is a good chance that he would encounter rain. After the
Thunder storm is gone he hears voices in the bushes. A person emerges from the brush and
is described as a slight creature-perhaps four feet high-clad in a purple tunic, girdled
at the waist with a leather belt. Sandals or buskins-I could not clearly distinguish
which-were on his feet; his legs were bare to the knees, and his head was bare. He was
under the impression that there will frail creature and not very intelligent and he was
correct. His assumption of intelligence was proven when one of the human looking
creatures asked him is he had come from the sun riding on a thunderstorm. Also when he
gave them a threatening motion towards them when they got around the machine they
retreated immediately. His assumption of frailty was proven after this fact. He noticed
that a lot of them looked a like which he thought was odd. They probably looked like this
because they have been bred and raised like cattle for many years so they are all
probably sharing a lot of the same genes. The thing Wells did not know is that you can
not do that to mammals especially humans; breeding so closely using the same genes it
causes mammals to become sterile and extinct. He only had 19th century knowledge so he
was probably not aware of this or he didn't care because most people were probably not
aware of the study of genetics. They didn't show much interest in learning they would run
around and play with toys and lose interest in a never ending cycle like a child. He
didn't know there language but it was obviously derived from the English because one of
the Eli's asked him if he had come from the sun and he understood but some of the other
things that the Eli were saying didn't make sense to the time traveler. He saw the white
sphinx and describe it as having a silver tree at its shoulder and the sphinx was made of
marble and the wings of it were spread out. A pedestal that the time traveler described
was mad of bronze and was thick with verdigris. The building that the Eloi resided at had
according to the time traveler had huge doors and was all together colossal dimensions.
The entrance had carvings of Phoenicians. After seeing a sphinx and Phoenician carvings
and how primitive the people were he had doubts that he was in the future. This proved by
when the time traveler is remembering the date on his dials that read 802, 701 A.D. He
noticed the Eli diet as been composed of mainly fruit and vegetables. He noticed there
was no signs of economic or cultural struggle in the surroundings so the time traveler
has some knowledge of archeology and maybe a bit of a historian, he even said that he
would like to witness the accepted account of the battle of Hastings. Also when the time
traveler looks at the countryside he says to himself Communism, I said to myself. This
shows that H. G. Wells know of Marxism Communism but it does not show if he is a
supporter or against it. At first he thought this society was man's triumph that they
live in peace but he learns later that the Eloi are being bred fattened up and eaten by
the ant like people the Morlocks. Later the main character returned to check on his time
machine and to his surprise it was gone. He began to panic, even when he fell down and
hit his face which produced a trickling of blood didn't even pause. At this point the
time traveler is over stressed and bent on getting his time machine back. He no longer
cares to learn about the Eloi; his priority has changed. H. G. Wells uses realistic
thought process of people when they are faced with problems. The time traveler is pacing
and his conscious is talking to itself trying to calm down and come up with solutions and
answers. After this event he sees Weena an adult Eloi girl swimming in a stream. She gets
a cramp and begins to drown and the other Eloi didn't even make an effort to save her.
The time traveler saves her life and they become very close. The sleep outside and she
shows an uncomfortable behavior as well as the other Eloi about the dark. The Eloi
wouldn't sleep alone or go out at dark. The time traveler resorts back to more theories
about the hotter climate of the region. He thinks that the planets are closer to the sun
now or that a planet has smashed into the sun and given it renewed energy. He was hiding
from the heat in a building when he found a gallery of history. It contained fossils,
machines, weapons, chemicals, and idles from every culture Greek, Phoenician and even
English ones. He found the tunnels that looked like half pillars kind of like ant wholes.
The time traveler saw one of the Morlocks and described it as having a dull white, and
had strange large greyish-red eyes; also that there was flaxen hair on its head and down
its back. He later described them as mechanical servants for the Eli and he hated them
and wanted to murder them even though they were the descendants of the human race. They
were carnivorous and preyed upon the Eloi. He goes back to the gallery and Weena
accompanies him everywhere he goes. He finds some matches and he breaks a lever off an
ancient machine serving as a mace to smash the Morlocks soft bodies. He found some
camphor which is like a candle wax. He left the gallery at night fall and started fires
on purpose to blind the creatures but he had difficulties starting vegetation on fire.
The Morlocks were extremely sensitive to the light. The attacked him and he beat them
with his mace. They were very weak individually but strong in numbers. The fires calm
down and became dark again then they grabbed him and were biting at his neck. He jumped
up and did some real strenuous fighting that occurs when people are in the middle of
combat and they experience a rush of anger. The fires started back up and the Morlocks
swayed to and fro in agony. They were making moaning sounds to each other. He chose not
to kill any of them while they were at his mercy. He sleeps awhile and in the morning he
heads down to the white sphinx. To his surprise he sees that the doors are open and the
time machine is visible. Obviously it is a trap for the time traveler. He proceeds in the
doors even though he suspects a trap. As soon as he gets on the time machine the doors
closed. The Morlocks laugh out loud thinking that he is trapped. The time traveler makes
an attempt to lite the match but it only lites on the match box. He defeats one of the
Morlocks and gets on his time machine and pushes the lever forward in a panic. Then he
goes hurling forward in time. He is on the time machine in an awkward position. He stops
and when he does he is on a beach and two large crustaceans try to eat him so he
accelerates into the future 30 million years or more and the sun grows bigger and more
dull. Then the world becomes dark and the air is difficult to breathe. When he thought
life was extinct he sees a life form swimming in the water the size of a football. He
then returns to his laboratory but in a different location because of the Morlocks
tampering with its location in the future. The editor and the medical doctor don't
believe his fantastic story even for an instant. The medical doctor can't recognize the
species of flower that the time traveler had in his pockets but that didn't change his
mind at one bit. The narrator even said that The serious people who took him seriously
never felt quite sure of his deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting their
reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery with egg-shell china. The
editor called his story a gaudy story. The narrator comes back to find the time traveler
and sees him carrying a camera to his laboratory. He heads to the laboratory as a result
of clinking and thud sounds. He enters the lab and witnesses just a flash of the time
machine and the time traveler. Then with a whirl of wind and dust the time traveler
disappeared. I enjoyed this book but I can't believe how the time traveler acted being a
logical and scientific man. Like when he went the future he encountered a new kind of
people and they led him to a building where they reside. He just left his time machine
behind; he could have had those people help him take it back to where they were staying.
Also he should have put some wheels on it so it could be transported easier and also a
floatation device encase he ended up in water. Also he should of had Weena stay with the
others, Im sure she was hampering his attempts in combat with the Morlocks. Also instead
of causing terrible useless damage to the environment he should have laid siege to the
pillars that the Morlocks used to exit out of. He should have set heavy objects on top of
them and started fires around them at night time. They would die of lack of oxygen or
hunger and the hunger would force them out of the holes into the fire or they would eat
each other. This would result in diminishing there numbers and making them to weak to
resist a confrontation. This book had a lot of science elements to it such as the climate
change, fourth dimension, chemical reaction, and some of Darwin's theories. There are
some things that are not true about this story that I want to point out. When the time
traveler goes 30 million years in the future from his beach location he describe after
the Morlock scene. He would not end up on the beach because of continental drifting when
the earth rotates. The continents move an inch a year that 30 million inches! He would be
in the ocean and sinking fast so if he did but the lever back the ocean would change the
space he was occupying and he would be stuck in the ground when came back probably
resulting in an explosion. Also when the earth became darker only after 30 million years.
The sun has approximately 5.5 billion years left before it goes super nova. Then it will
become a red giant and be extremely big as wells described in the book. So Wells was not
informed of all the facts but still, this book was interesting and entertaining.