|
About the author:
Herbert George Wells, novelist and sociologist, was born in Bromley, Kent in1866. He seemed to become a very intelligent boy which his later success would proof. The jobs he had before his career as a famous writer tell us about his versatility and self-righteousness. First he was educated at Midhurst Grammar School and after being apprenticed to a draper and then to a chemist, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Science where he studied under T. H. Huxley. He became a pupil-teacher at the University Correspondence College, Cambridge, and after obtaining a B Sc degree, became a science lecturer. His first marriage to a cousin ended in divorce and he subsequently married on of his pupils, Amy Catherine Robbins. He died in1946. His first successful book was The Time Machine and was followed up two years later by The Invisible Man. With his story The War of the Worlds Wells created the model for the same named radio play by Orson wells, which caused mass panics in the US. It was so realistic that the people believed in Wells visions of octopus like creatures attacking the world to take over the control of the world. Creating utopias was the passion of his life and this motivated his writing Mankind of the Making and A Modern Utopia. At least 7 of his books were famously filmed and nearly everybody knows at least one vision of H. G. Wells. In his final phase, Wells turned to socio-political writing with such books as The Outside History and The Shape of Things to Come. His account of his own life, Experience in Autobiography, was published in 1934.
Main Characters:
The Time Traveller: you don't get to know a lot about his background, only that he's a well educated scientist who lives at the London of the out clinging 19th century. He is talented in learning new things and gifted with a sharp analytic mind. He holds weekly meetings for people who are interested in his scientific and philosophical discussions. He's pushed onto new things by his urge to research. At his trip in the future he never sits still, always he's looking for new discoveries and whatever he sees, he wants to know the background, the reason for a development and analyses the new very thoughtful.
Weena: The Time Traveller rescues her on his trip to the future from drowning and from the very first moment she's very considerate and somehow in love with the Time Traveller. Though the two aren't able to converse properly, she sticks to him, never goes away and tries to comfort him. Weena also flatters him a lot, on the one hand, she's like a child, on the other more like a dog that always comes back after you've beaten him. She's the only character in the book we get to know a bit better, she's got a name, a life, a home, not just a nameless figure like the time traveller himself or the young man.
The young man: He visits the meetings of the Mr. X as one of the few constant visitors and listens with the fascination of a little child and he's willing to believe in the things what he sees with his own eyes. Not like the others, he thinks that there are some mysteries left to explore. Though doesn't participate a lot at the conversations, he listens very interested and takes notes, so he also writes down the whole report of the Time Traveller about the events in the future. Maybe it's because of his youth, maybe it's because he's not as rich as the others, more open for new things, in the end, he's the only one who believes the Time Traveller.
Plot:
At the beginning a young man tells about a meeting he joins. It's at the house of the time traveller, who wants the other to call him Mr. X. The Time traveller starts right away a discussion about the four dimensions, the 3 in space and the timeline. He wants to introduce the others as soft as possible to the fact that he is possible to travel through the time and to proof to his guests that what he says is true, he shows a small device that can go through the time. But his guests don't believe him and so he tells them to come again a week later. So when they arrive at his house, the time traveller comes around but he looks very dirty, used and tired. He tells them that he has done it, that he has travelled through time and gives a chronological order of the events he has experienced in the future: He starts of at the beginning of the 20th century and travels to what he calls the golden age, about 800.000 years in the future. What he finds there makes him think a lot, the people are friendly and small, without any fear and filled with a childlike trust. They welcome him very friendly, decorate him with flowers and give him something to eat. The first few days the time traveller explores the surroundings of the London of the future, still there can be some thins recognised like the shape of the land, the themse but he begins to wonder why the small people - they call themselves Eloi - aren't able to any further thoughts. Soon he recognizes that this is the farce of the ideal society: fear, misery, illness and wore have been exterminated and so there was no more need for intelligence because intelligence always rises up from needs and danger. The Eloi aren't able to do more than dance around, singing and talking in their very simple language, they don't know science or any other interests no more. As one of the small creatures nearly drowns in the river while they play the time traveller is the only one who helps, the others only stare at the small women who drifts away. From this moment on the girl, she's named Weena doesn't leave the time traveller, not for any reason. He's affected by her love and she makes him feel more comfortable and so he's happy about her presence. Still the time traveller goes on with his explorations and now he concentrates on the strange towers that are everywhere. Soon he establishes a connection between theses towers and the many wells and after he sees strange hairy animals at night, disappearing in the wells, he gets down such a well. What he sees there makes him understand a lot and he recognises how wrong he has been with his theories about the degeneration of the Eloi. The creatures that live down there in the underground also have been human one day. What he sees is the pervert extreme of the class differences of today. The ones who live at the sunlight, the Eloi, they have a neat life, food, clothes, all they need but they aren't able to produce what they need, so the Morlocks, the people of the underground do it for them, they live in the dark since thousands of years and their bodies have adjusted them for a life without light and fresh food. But after they weren't able no more to get food down there, they started to take care of the Eloi and get them as food and so they come to the surface every night to get something to eat. That's why the Eloi are so afraid of the dark. Shocked the time traveller escapes but on his flight Weena gets killed though he wanted to take her with him and so he gets to his time machine but he doesn't return immediately to his time, first he wants to see how the end of the world looks like but everything he finds are some big crabs and plants so he has to confess that the mankind has failed and that in the end only the strongest remains. Back at the weekly meeting he tells his whole story. But none of his guests really believes him and so they all leave, somewhat disappointed. The only one who believes him, a young man returns to the house just to see the time traveller leave again for new adventures. The young man now knows that everything has been true and so he waits for the time traveller to return, but he won't come back anymore.
Interpretation:
The Time Machine might be considered the first work of modern science-fiction, and it is still the classic statement of an important subgenre. But this novel about the Victorian future is more than a fantastical moan; it raises necessary questions about progress, social orders, so called civilisation and the ultimate fate of the world.
Wells wrote this novel mainly because Charles Darwin published and proved his theory of evolution, which was the greatest scientific rumpus since the trial of Galileo. The concrete fictions in The Time Machine are as true as the fictions in Verne's Book Travel to the Moon. Many critics compare Wells with Jules Verne, but while Verne refers his fictions to real scientific facts, Wells concentrates more on political and social future visions. Verne said about Wells that his stories didn't response on very scientific bases; Wells invented, but he was nevertheless aware of the latest developments in science.
Wells sees the evolution of two races as an outgrowth of 19th century populations of capitalists and the working class.
|
