I found The Time Machine to be an interesting read, and there were several things which jumped out at me from the text. The first was the juxtaposition of the separation of the Eloi from the Morlocks with the the fusion of the sexes among the Eloi. I thought that the blurring of gender roles in form as well as function was a fascinating hypothesis especially given the context in which Wells was writing. It strikes me that in the late 1890s, the mechanization of industry, along the Victorian sense of morality, was solidifying gender roles, rather than blending them, and to suppose that mechanization would eventually lead to the near loss of gender would have been somewhat controversial.
The other visual which struck me was the scene in the porcelain palace. I found it interesting that Wells imagined this fantastical society of the future, and yet the arrangement of the museum sounded like it could have been a replica of the British Museum with the exception of the exterior. I am not entirely sure whether this was intention or oversight on his part, but I thought it an interesting image in his vision of the future. However, at the present it is the social commentary rather than mechanics which is of most relevance.
On a more general note, what really struck me about the atrophy of human society in this particular novel, was the lack of expansion beyond the earth. In my experience, in many science fiction settings it is contact and conflict on other worlds and other species which authors envision as the catalysts for human ingenuity. In this case, however, the other species was in fact a direct descendant of humanity, which perhaps inhibited the will of the Eloi to combat them; or, perhaps it was simply that the conflict took too long to emerge and the Eloi were no longer capable of the ingenuity needed to fight the Morlocks.
Also, this raises the question of which species was more human in their behavior. It seems almost like a Jekyll and Hyde case, in which the Morlocks represent all of the evil of humanity and Eloi all of the good, but their 'goodness' does not necessarily make the Eloi more human than the Morlocks.
Anyway,those may not all be the most relevant thoughts, but that is what has come to my mind since reading.
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Interesting, I never thought about the blurring of gender roles of the Eloi. Although they were human-like in their appearance, I never thought of them as humans or as adults. I don't know if I would call the Eloi good, but they appear more innocent than the Morlocks.
Also found the porcelain palace interesting because the museum had tools like matches and camphor that the Eloi could have used but instead it remains behind glass "do not touch".
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