Finding the Perspective Amidst Controversy
Time travel stories depict controversial topics like the de-evolution of humanity in a light where anyone can have a clear perspective. Part of the human condition includes denial of beliefs, contrary to one's set of preconceived notions. The point of time travel literature is to break down these preconceived notions by creating a great distance between the reader and the story. The Time Traveler from H.G Wells short story, The Time Machine experiences this distance because he went so far into the future that there was a split in the evolutionary tract of humans. The species derived from humans are primal and thoughtless, the distance on the evolutionary tree allows them to be considered de-evolved.
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The Morlock cannibalize the Eloi and this might reflect on aspects of the human condition including aggression and neglect towards marginalized people. Wells uses time travel to set up an Earth where a man can hardly recognize his home land. He attempts to tie the reader up with all the absurdity of white monkey people and small idiot cattle people so that he can make commentary on his current time period. The Time Traveler contemplates on the Morlock “I had merely thought myself impeded by the childish simplicity of the little people … but there was an altogether new element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks - a something inhuman and malign” (Wells 48). His point could be reflecting on the commentary of the strong feeding on the weak in order to move up in the world. The white cannibalistic humans feeding on the small childish Eloi evokes imagery of big business preying on the working man. The distance in the story allows this and other examples such as near the end of the story where there is no humanity. People believe that the human race is infinite and the end of this story could serve as a warning for humanity by revealing the human race ceasing to exist. The Planet of the Apes by Boulle also uses absurdity and distance from the reader to make comments on the harsh conditions of the prisoner of war camps. …show more content…
Once the Time Traveler returns only one person believes the event that have unfolded. No one takes action to stop this future from happening and the Time Traveler disappears into the future never to be heard from again. The ending is meant to force the reader to think about whether they believe the problems that Wells wrote about, and if they will do anything. “The Day of an American Journalist in 1889” by Jules Verne depicts a utopia in the future that contrasts The Time Machine. The singular parallel is their failure to prolong the life of humanity. The narrator states after the failure of the experiment “As for yet no means has been found of increasing the length of the terrestrial year” (Verne 14). The terrestrial year stands for the longevity of the human race and they cannot change that. Whether there is a de-evolution or a creation of a utopia no one can stop time. These ideas tie into Asimov's idea of reactions of humans to scientific advancement, or lack thereof. One future is depicted as a Utopia and the other as a Dystopia but both fail in prolonging humanity's existence, which illustrates the need for many people to take action despite the odds. The end result is the reader forms a new perspective, that is the point of a time travel
In Mark Twain’s essay, “The Damned Human Race,” he uses a sarcastic tone in order to show that humans are the lowest kinds of animals and ar not as socially evolved as they think they are, making his readers want to change. In order to inspire his audience, Twain motivates them by providing specific comparisons between animals and humans. These satiric examples emphasize the deficiencies of the human race and entice them to change for the better.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair exemplifies a muckraking style in its often gory depictions of life in a meat packing factory, Sinclair writes of how the meat packing industry exploits its workers, many of whom are uneducated and poor in the same way a capitalist government exploits it's working class. Sinclair uses Symbolism in terms of physical objects, Objects that serve a metaphorical purpose, and oppressive tone, to persuade the reader that Capitalism leads to the declination and corruption of America and that the only way to remedy this is socialistic government.
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was an intriguing and exciting book about a Time Traveller and his journey’s through time. In this book, the Traveller explained to a group of men who were discussing the nature of time that time was the fourth dimension; just like the three dimensions of space: length, width and height. The Traveller argued that since time was a dimension, then it stood to reason that people should be able to move along the time continuum, into the past or the future. Most of the men do not seem to believe the Traveller or his theory, but agreed that they would like to travel in time, and talked about what they would do if they could. To illustrate his point, the Time Traveller went and got a model of his time machine from his laboratory to demonstrate and later returned to detail the places, things and people he had seen in his travels with his working Time Machine. Throughout the story, the Time Traveller faced setbacks and challenges, but the book outlined how he persevered and pointed to the future mankind faced.
By going back and forth between the time frames, the first being in the present and the second being in 800,000, H.G. Wells lets the reader know that the time traveller has made it back from the future by providing passages that prove he made it home, to the present, alive. However, during the time span of the novel, the time traveller from the future did not know that he was able to escape the future. This changes the point of view throughout the story, even though the main character doesn’t change. Because of the changes in the time frame, the time traveller in the present and the time traveller in the future can be considered different people. “Selecting a little side gallery, I made my essay. I never felt such a disappointment as I did in waiting five, ten, fifteen minutes for an explosion that never came. Of course the (dynamite sticks) were dummies, as I might have guessed from their presence. I really believe that, had they not been so, I should have rushed off incontinently and blown Sphinx, bronze doors, and (as it proved) my chances of finding the Time Machine, all together into nonexistence.” In this excerpt, the time traveller is speaking of his own adventure after coming back from the future. However, he makes it sound as if he were in the future. By putting interjections into the story, he changes up the storyline
In this essay I am going to discuss Wells' use of contrast in the Time
In the story “Recitatif” author Toni Morrison, published in 1983, tells a story of two young girls, Twyla and Roberta, with two different ethnicities, who grow up in an orphanage together. Due to the fact that the story is narrated by Twyla, it seems natural for us the readers to associate with this touching story, as many of us have encounter racial discrimination back in the 1980s, making it clear that Morrison states the two girls grow up to always remember each based on the similarities and the childhood they both encounter together, come from different ethnic backgrounds, and as the story reveals, destiny is determined to bring the girls’ path together.
All in all Wells was trying to warn us that the apocalypse or end of
In The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveller first visits the year 802,701, where Wells begins to establish that humanity has split into two opposite and startling sub-species, the Eloi and the Morlocks, similar to “modern” humans. After his associations with the Eloi and finally outsmarting the Morlocks, the Time Traveller escapes millions of years into the future to a period devoid of human life, and once more after that to see the final devolution of man. With these experiences centuries into the future, it is clear Wells does not possess an optimistic outlook on his interpretations of the future, but rather one of regression. Wells’ idea that humanity is doomed to devolution and eventual extinction is shown through the
Once a society progresses to a point when it reaches a utopia forward progression is then stopped. This idea is present within the time traveler’s thought process while he is going to t...
Ernest Hemingway uses the various events in Nick Adams life to expose the reader to the themes of youth, loss, and death throughout his novel In Our Time. Youth very often plays its part in war, and since In Our Time relates itself very frequently to war throughout; it is not a surprise that the theme of youthful innocence arises in many of the stories. In “Indian Camp” the youthful innocence is shown in the last sentence of the story: “In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.” (19) When this sentence and the conversation Nick and his father have before they get on the boat are combined in thought it shows that because of Nicks age at the time that he does not yet understand the concept of death.
The book The Time Machine has various key elements that connect with literarily terms. Another connection that Wells makes us wonder is the time in this story, whether its human time or geologic time.
During the late Victorian Britain, H.G. Wells became a literary spokesperson for liberal optimism and social reform. His scientific knowledge and literary capabilities led him to be one of the fore fathers of modern science fiction. In his novel The Time Machine, Wells, knowledgeable on the teachings of Charles Darwin and those of the Fabian Society, attempts to warn society that the brutality of capitalism and the plight of the laborer are not dealt with through social reforms then humanity will drive itself to extinction.
The transformation of mankind into bestial Morlocks and Eloi lasted for centuries and developed a feud between the two species. Through these images of Eloi and Marlocks, the author displays the problems that may affect the social world, and a lot of human qualities would be lost. Eventually the Time Traveler 's attitude toward the future civilization was changed, his expectations about the time of the golden age and the progress was transformed into the opposite way. He returned back home morally broken and oppressed from all the disastrous consequences of the 802701 year. The time machine reveals the result of scientific and technological progress as a result of the global
...God in this future except when something new being fear and uncertainty comes up and the time traveler feels legitimately in danger. The topics Wells chooses to discuss are very relevant and except for the physical depiction of the creatures in the future, the issue of the lower class being oppressed and revolting against the upper class and especially the meaning of life are large issues that have and probably will come to life in to future. H.G. Wells’s bleak depiction of the future through The Time Machine is one with many warnings and an almost Marxist view against capitalism and its downsides. H.G. Wells chooses to include a symbol of hope through the fragile and tender white flowers, a symbol of hope to human kind to be encouraged about the fact that wherever life may lead human kind, that there is always hope and this is a very plausible outcome for mankind.