This was the time traveller's assessment of the people of the future, the Eloi. He was describing how the Eloi seemed to have lost all of their intelligence as time went on and are now ignorant and dependent on the Morlock people for their needs. This book describes the time traveller's visit to the year 802,701 A.D., but, unlike most stories about a character visiting the future, I found the time machine an extremely uneventful book. This book is a good read, full of great descriptions of the future world, but most of the book was spent with the time traveller just marvelling at the scenery. H.G. Wells The Time Machine may be considered a classic, and it is still a good book, just, as advice, don't go into the book expecting cliffhanging action.
Throughout The Time Machine, a major theme of the book is the time traveller's desire to get home and the plans he comes up with to return home. Shortly after the time traveller arrives in 802, 701 A.D., his time machine is placed into a large compartment in the pedestal underneath a statue of a sphinx, and he discovers that he can not get into the pedestal. This sends him on a crazed, determined spiral to try to get into the pedestal. Once he discovers he can't get into the pedestal, he decides to go and find the Morlocks, who he believes put his machine in there, to have them get it back out. He travels to several places, including an ancient museum, looking for something to use against the Morlocks, but he only finds matches and cephalocor. The time traveller uses the matches and cephalocor to start a fire to protect himself and his companion, Weena, from the Morlocks, but only succeeds in starting a forest fire. The threat of the fire though does get the Morlocks to open the pedestal, revealing the time machine, but it is only a trick to get the time traveller alone, in the dark, where the Morlocks will be able to capture him. The time traveller manages to escape them, though, and makes his way back to his own time. I just really don't understand though why the time traveller went to all of the trouble to make a time machine if when he travelled time, all he wanted to do as soon as he got there was to want to come back. Maybe it's the fear of the unknown, but I'm not sure.
The one aspect of the book that I found that the author did an extremely good job on was the setting of the story. As the author describes a building, it's almost like looking at the building through the author's eyes. Vivid descriptive words describe the landscape of the book, allowing a picture of the author's world to be painted in the mind. The people, from the small, diminutive Eloi to the near blind, apelike Morlocks, are also very diverse and each have their own specific personalities and traits that make them similar to people today and, at the same time, different from them. H.G. Wells' ability to provide a descriptive, vivid landscape and characters is second to none, and, in my opinion, is one of the highlights of the book.
The characters of The Time Machine are very diverse, with the stereotypical characters such as the skeptical doctor and the newspaper editor always looking for a big story, all the way to the people of the future, the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi and the Morlocks symbolized the social and economical status of England during the time of Wells's life, with the Eloi symbolizing the rich,who live above ground and benefit from the working class, and the Morlocks symbolizing the workers, living underground, forced to provide for the Eloi. This showed how Wells tried to alert people about the unfairness of this system and showed how people were never going to be able to escape from it, even in a seemingly perfect society. This aspect of the characters hints that Wells was a very observant thinker and was trying to combat this way of life for society, showing them how the Eloi eventually began to fear the Morlocks and loocked themselves inside their shelters at night, scared of an attack. The way Well's described the Eloi's fear and by allowing the time traveller to discover why they feared them, showing how society had crumble was almost like a warning to them. Only good characters make you think about a subject like this, in this deep of a level.
Considered a literary classic, The Time Machine is one of the books that nearly everyone has read, and I expected a very well written book, full of action and adventure. A well written book was what I discovered, but the book was lacking eventful action and wasn't as entertaining as I expected. Maybe I interpreted the book a different way than other readers have usually interpreted it, or I'm just hard to impress, but The Time Machine was not as good as I thought it would be. Nevertheless, this is still a good book, and an interesting look at what the future may have in store for humanity.
83 pages
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