1. Science fiction has built-in problems as classic literature, but H.G. Wells maintains status and influence as the greatest "classic" science fiction writer. What qualities distinguish his style? What models does he create for science fiction in terms of style, action, and characterization? What mix of science and fiction?

2. The Time Machine was written 1895, a generation after Darwin's Origin of Species (1859): What signs, terms, or symbols of evolution in Time Machine? Is its plot evolutionary or apocalyptic?

3. Evolution as progress or decline? How does changing the time scale (from near to distant future) change the perception?

4. Identify "Social Darwinism" (e.g., "survival of the fittest") with cultural, class, or biological developments in The Time Machine.

5. "Somebody up there . . . ": How is Wells's industrial-era evolution updated to digital-era technology? What styles or symbols are updated in terms of gender, action, humor? How are both evolution and creation-apocalypse present in the same text?

5a. "Somebody" (cont'd): Published in 1994, this might be Literature of the Future's most current, hippest test. What feels current or futuristic about its language or scenario?

1. H.G. Wells is the greatest historic science fiction writer. What qualities distinguish his style? What models does he create for science fiction in terms of style, action, and characterization? What mix of science and fiction? (Emphasis on objective 3a: Metaphor / analogy)

1.18, 1.28 analogy to make unknown known + 1.71

[1.47] “Experimental verification!” cried I. “You are going to verify that?”

[2.4] "Where's—?" said I, naming our host. ["host" = Time Traveller, unaccountably absent; servants would have received the visitors to his house]

[2.18] "Story be damned!" said the Time Traveller. "I want something to eat. I won't say a word until I get some peptone [peptides, amino acids] into my arteries. Thanks. And the salt." [sf, but then familiar]

2.26 I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It's true—every word of it, all the same. [quickness, intensity, efficiency] [cf. "protein boost," "lactic acid"]

2.29 [nice cinematic / dramatic setting of story-telling]

3.11 sphinx (symbol) also 4.7, 5.2, 5.5,

3.3 she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket

3.4 night followed day like the flapping of a black wing.

3.6 I flung myself into futurity

3.11 in shape something like a winged sphinx, but the wings, instead of being carried vertically at the sides, were spread so that it seemed to hover

4.28 complexity

5.3 The Time Machine was gone!

5.13 a sound like a chuckle [shapes nature of future]

5.15 figurative language

5.17 an obvious conclusion, but it was absolutely wrong.

5.20 I could not see how things were kept going.

5.23 my little woman

5.27 a solitary white, ape-like creature

5.35 my mind was already in revolution; my guesses and impressions were slipping and sliding to a new adjustment.

limits of science fiction

5.18 Then, think how narrow the gap between a negro and a white man of our own times, and how wide the interval between myself and these of the Golden Age!

2. The Time Machine was written 1895, a generation after Darwin's Origin of Species (1859): What signs or terms of evolution in Time Machine?

3.12 What if in this interval the race had lost its manliness and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful? I might seem some old-world savage animal, only the more dreadful and disgusting for our common likeness—a foul creature to be incontinently slain.

3.15 how warm the air was.

4.7 a chain of beautiful flowers altogether new to me

4.13 horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, had followed the Ichthyosaurus into extinction.

4.20 in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other, these people of the future were alike.

4.26 selective breeding

5.9 I felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind—a strange animal in an unknown world.

5.11  find its hiding-place, and recover it by force or cunning.

5.18 Then, think how narrow the gap between a negro and a white man of our own times, and how wide the interval between myself and these of the Golden Age!

5.29 people, unfamiliar with such speculations as those of the younger Darwin*, forget that the planets must ultimately fall back one by one into the parent body.

3. Evolution as progress instead of decline? How does changing the time scale (from near to distant future) change the perception?

[1.44] “To discover a society,” said I, “erected on a strictly communistic basis.”

[3.7] "What strange developments of humanity, what wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization, I thought, might not appear when I came to look nearly into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before my eyes! I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and mist. I saw a richer green flow up the hillside, and remain there, without any wintry intermission. Even through the veil of my confusion the earth seemed very fair. And so my mind came round to the business of stopping,

3.16 a very beautiful and graceful creature, but indescribably frail

4.4 a certain lack of the interest I might have expected in them.

4.6 were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children

4.10 so much worn, as I judged by the going to and fro of past generations, as to be deeply channeled along the more frequented ways.

4.14 I never met people more indolent or more easily fatigued.

4.16 Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A.D. For that, I should explain, was the date the little dials of my machine recorded.

4.17 ruinous splendor

4.18 palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared.

[4.19] "Communism," said I to myself.

4.23 no hedges, no signs of proprietary rights, no evidences of agriculture; the whole earth had become a garden.

4.25 humanity upon the wane

4.25 odd consequence of the social effort in which we are at present engaged. And yet, come to think, it is a logical consequence enough. Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions of life—the true civilizing process that makes life more and more secure—had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And the harvest was what I saw!

4.27 The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been stamped out.

4.28 no signs of struggle, neither social nor economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that commerce which constitutes the body of our world, was gone. It was natural on that golden evening that I should jump at the idea of a social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population had ceased to increase.

4.31 [4.31] "Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness.

4.33 Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough—as most wrong theories are! 

5.18 visions of Utopias and coming times which I have read

[5.40] "The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind.

5.40 the balanced civilization that was at last attained must have long since passed its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay

4. Identify "Social Darwinism" (e.g., "survival of the fittest") with the cultural or class developments in The Time Machine.

5.33 Man had not remained one species, but had differentiated into two distinct animals: that my graceful children of the Upperworld were not the sole descendants of our generation, but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal Thing, which had flashed before me, was also heir to all the ages.

5.36 this second species of Man was subterranean

5.37 the how of this splitting of the human species

5.38 the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Laborer

5.39 above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labor

5. "Somebody up there . . . ": How is Wells's industrial-era evolution updated to digital-era technology? What styles or symbols are updated in terms of gender, action, humor?   

species: cf. Time Machine, Bears discover Fire

Notes to Time Machine

1.2 The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.”

1.11 really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time.

1.13 There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.

[1.15] “It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why three dimensions particularly—why not another direction at right angles to the other three?—and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimensional geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. . . . ”

1.18, 1.28 analogy to make unknown known

1.26 Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave.

1.58 a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone—vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.

[1.65] After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. “It must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,” he said.

1.71 We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air.

[1.76] “Upon that machine,” said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft, “I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life.”

[2.8] He was in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared with green down the sleeves; his hair disordered, and as it seemed to me greyer—

[3.4] "I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that one has upon a switchback*—of a helpless headlong motion!

night followed day like the flapping of a black wing.

3.6 with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity

[3.7] "What strange developments of humanity, what wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization, I thought, . . .  I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me,

3.11 sphinx

[3.13] "Already I saw other vast shapes—huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns,

[3.14] "In a circular opening, high up in the wall of the nearer house, I saw a group of figures clad in rich soft robes. They had seen me, and their faces were directed towards me.

3.15 a slight creature—perhaps four feet high

how warm the air was

3.16 a very beautiful and graceful creature, but indescribably frail.

[4.1] "In another moment we were standing face to face, I and this fragile thing out of futurity. He came straight up to me and laughed into my eyes. The absence from his bearing of any sign of fear struck me at once. Then he turned to the two others who were following him and spoke to them in a strange and very sweet and liquid tongue.

4.2 touched my hand. Then I felt other soft little tentacles upon my back and shoulders.

4.3 something in these pretty little people that inspired confidence—a graceful gentleness, a certain childlike ease

I unscrewed the little levers that would set it in motion, and put these in my pocket.

[4.4] "And then, looking more nearly into their features, I saw some further peculiarities in their Dresden china [fine porcelain] type of prettiness. Their hair, which was uniformly curly, came to a sharp end at the neck and cheek; there was not the faintest suggestion of it on the face, and their ears were singularly minute. The mouths were small, with bright red, rather thin lips, and the little chins ran to a point. The eyes were large and mild; and—this may seem egotism on my part—I fancied even that there was a certain lack of the interest I might have expected in them.

4.5 hesitating for a moment how to express time, I pointed to the sun. At once a quaintly pretty little figure in checkered purple and white followed my gesture, and then astonished me by imitating the sound of thunder.

4.6 were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children

4.7 beautiful flowers altogether new to me

the memory of my confident anticipations of a profoundly grave and intellectual posterity came, with irresistible merriment, to my mind.

4.8 a long-neglected and yet weedless garden

4.10 innumerable tables made of slabs of polished stone, raised perhaps a foot from the floor, and upon these were heaps of fruits.

4.12 extremely rich and picturesque. There were, perhaps, a couple of hundred people dining in the hall, and most of them, seated as near to me as they could come, were watching me with interest, their little eyes shining over the fruit they were eating. All were clad in the same soft and yet strong, silky material.

4.13 strict vegetarians

horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, had followed the Ichthyosaurus into extinction.

4.14 presently a fair-haired little creature seemed to grasp my intention and repeated a name.

4.14 presently I had a score of noun substantives at least at my command; and then I got to demonstrative pronouns, and even the verb "to eat."

[4.15] "their lack of interest. They would come to me with eager cries of astonishment, like children, but like children they would soon stop examining me and wander away after some other toy.

4.16 the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A.D. For that, I should explain, was the date the little dials of my machine recorded.

palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared.

[4.19] "Communism," said I to myself.

4.20 in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other, these people of the future were alike. And the children seemed to my eyes to be but the miniatures of their parents. I judged, then, that the children of that time were extremely precocious, physically at least [sexually active?], and I found afterwards abundant verification of my opinion.

4.21 the strength of a man and the softness of a woman, the institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of physical force. Where population is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and offspring are secure, there is less necessity—indeed there is no necessity—for an efficient family, and the specialization of the sexes with reference to their children's needs disappears. We see some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in this future age it was complete. This, I must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I was to appreciate how far it fell short of the reality.

4.22 a pretty little structure, like a well under a cupola

4.26 humanity upon the wane

We improve our favorite plants and animals—and how few they are—gradually by selective breeding; . . . Nature, too, is shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better organized, and still better. That is the drift of the current in spite of the eddies. The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and co-operating; things will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of Nature. In the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the balance of animal and vegetable life to suit our human needs.

4.27 the air was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi; everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither. The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been stamped out.

4.28 no toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither social nor economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that commerce which constitutes the body of our world, was gone. It was natural on that golden evening that I should jump at the idea of a social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population had ceased to increase.

[4.29] "But with this change in condition comes inevitably adaptations to the change. What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigor? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family,

4.31 the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to eroticism, and then come languor and decay.

4.32 We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity

4.33 very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough—as most wrong theories are! 

[5.3] "The Time Machine was gone!

5.6 some hitherto unsuspected power

5.9  felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind—a strange animal in an unknown world.

5.11 queer narrow footprints like those I could imagine made by a sloth

5.15 their language was excessively simple—almost exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any, abstract terms, or little use of figurative language

5.16 all of them I heard a certain sound: a thud-thud-thud, like the beating of some big engine

5.18 visions of Utopias and coming times which I have read

5.19 aged and infirm among this people there were none.

5.20 They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going.

[5.22] "That day, too, I made a friend

[5.25] "It was from her, too, that I learned that fear had not yet left the world. She was fearless enough in the daylight, and she had the oddest confidence in me; for once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening grimaces at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness to her was the one thing dreadful. It was a singularly passionate emotion, and it set me thinking and observing.

5.26 some greyish animal

5.27 a solitary white, ape-like creature

5.29 how much hotter than our own was the weather of this Golden Age.

But people, unfamiliar with such speculations as those of the younger Darwin, forget

5.30 A pair of eyes, luminous by reflection against the daylight without, was watching me out of the darkness.

5.31 instinctive dread of wild beasts

a queer little ape-like figure,

5.32 a dull white, and had strange large greyish-red eyes; also that there was flaxen hair on its head and down its back.

like a human spider! It was clambering down the wall, and now I saw for the first time a number of metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of ladder down the shaft.

5.33 gradually, the truth dawned on me: that Man had not remained one species, but had differentiated into two distinct animals: that my graceful children of the Upperworld were not the sole descendants of our generation, but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal Thing, which had flashed before me, was also heir to all the ages.

5.37 in this artificial Underworld that such work as was necessary to the comfort of the daylight race was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted it, and went on to assume the how of this splitting of the human species.

5.38 the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Laborer,

5.39 exclusive tendency of richer people—due, no doubt, to the increasing refinement of their education, and the widening gulf between them and the rude violence of the poor—is already leading to the closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the surface of the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country is shut in against intrusion. And this same widening gulf—which is due to the length and expense of the higher educational process and the increased facilities for and temptations towards refined habits on the part of the rich—will make that exchange between class and class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of our species along lines of social stratification, less and less frequent. So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labor.