The Time Machine

I really like H. G. Wells' use of science in The Time Machine. While setting up how the time machine worked was essential to the plot, I enjoyed the little details he provided. His explanation of time as a 4th dimension was very clear and plausible to the point that I wanted to build my own time machine in my room. Even the details about the night sky shifting were accurate and brought me back to my astronomy days. But enough rambling about the little things.

Most of my understanding of the Eloi and Morlocks is influenced by The Communist Manifesto, which I had to read for another class this week. And it seems as though that the Time Traveller was thinking along the same lines. After witnessing the Eloi and their simplicity and laziness, he believes that this is the "utopia" that communism caused: a classless society with no incentives to work. However, he comes across the Morlocks and changes his theory. Now the Time Traveller is presented with two different human-like specimen and immediately jumps into assuming that the Eloi are the elite and the Morlocks are the working-class, based solely on their habitats. To him, the Eloi must be the elite because they remain topside and sleep in these palaces while the Morlocks were forced to work on the subterranean level. The final discovery that the Morlocks eat the Eloi shifts his theory once again. Wells makes it seem that the working class Morlocks are seeking revenge on the Eloi. But I think the roles are reversed here. The Morlocks are the bourgeoisie and the Eloi are the proletariat, though not in the modern sense of the words. The Morlocks are "exploiting" the Eloi in the most primal sense; the class struggle becomes predator versus prey.

As the Time Traveller went further into the future, it seemed to become less and less civilized (in terms of technology and species). At the end of the Earth, there was no trace of the Morlocks or Eloi, only large crustaceans roamed the land similar to the dinosaurs. Through the three time-settings, we see that civilization as we know it regresses.

By jumping so far into the future, Wells leaves much mystery to the reader. What happened between the Victorian era and 802,701? What was the turning point? Presently, scientists and inventors are searching for the next big thing to make our lives easier and solve large problems like global warming and such. When did we run out of problems to solve? Could it be in the next 50 years?

When I first read that the Time Traveller was in the year 802,701 I thought of myself in that time taking a history class. With over 800,000 years to cover, what becomes irrelevant and what is important? Well, that seems sufficient for now. Hopefully after class my thoughts will have some semblance of structure.