The Time Machine by H.G. Wells: a Brief Synopsis Including Vocabulary
From Each Chapter, Quizzes* and Discussion
Questions
The Time Machine (1895) was the twenty-nine year old H.G. Wells' first real success. He went on to write other classics in science fiction, including The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898) and The First Men in the Moon (1901). Wells also wrote sociological novels and non-fiction works, including his Outline of History (1920) and The Shape of Things to Come (1933).
*A note about the quizzes: I prefer short answer recall and interpretive questions over multiple-choice, matching and true/false. The quizzes take longer to grade, but I believe they require more from the student. Occasionally I have used the quizzes as study sheets to accompany the reading where they work well to direct students' attention to critical events in the chapters. The quiz pages are designed so a teacher can print them straight from the web page, duplicate them and administer the quiz (a little bit of white out will remove the web page source of the quiz). Quiz of chapters I-III, IV-VI and VII-XII
Cast of Characters:
The Time Traveler
The Friends: Filby, the Psychologist, the very young man, the Provincial Mayor, the Medical Man, the Editor, the Journalist
Weena
The narrator
The Eloi
Morlocks
Chapter I:
The novel opens with an after-dinner conversation at the Time Traveler's house. The Time Traveler explains to his guests the concept of time as a 4th dimension, that, except for a "natural infirmity of the flesh," people normally overlook. His guests are dismissive of his idea that the 4th dimension can be traveled just as the other three are. He demonstrates a small version of a time machine by having the Psychologist press a lever that causes it to vanish. The guests believe they've been fooled by a clever trick. "Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?" the Time Traveler asks. He takes them to his laboratory to see a full-sized version of the machine. The Time Traveler says, "Upon that machine . . . I intend to explore time."
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter II:
The narrator explains why no one quite believed what they'd heard and seen: "The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed." The next Thursday, a slightly different group of men meet for dinner again, but the Time Traveller is late. When he does arrive the Time Traveller's clothes are soiled and his face cut. Rather than offer an explanation, he begs their pardon to wash and fetch fresh clothes. When he returns he puts off telling them what happened until he eats. Finally he finishes eating and agrees to tell his story that he says, "Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It's true–every word of it, all the same."
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter III:
The Time Traveller says that since their last dinner, he has worked on the Time Machine, finishing it "at ten o'clock today." He activated the machine with the same fear he imagined a suicide might feel with a gun pressed to his head. Time travel, he reports, is most unpleasant at first, very disorienting. Days pass in seconds; buildings rise and fall; the surface of the earth seems to move. A new fear occurs to him: what if he stops in a space occupied by a solid substance! When he stops he is the middle of a hail storm, and as it lets up he sees a very different landscape from the one he left. There is a colossal figure of white marble in a shape like a sphinx, and beyond that large buildings. Fearful of what humanity might have become in the far future, the Time Traveller prepares to leave, but he sees people who are small and unthreatening. He decides to stay.
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions | Check Quiz, Chapters I-III
Chapter IV:
The Time Traveller attracts a crowd of the "exquisite creatures." Worrying that his ride home might be in peril, he takes the controlling lever from it and accompanies his new hosts. Surprisingly, the people of the future are not "incredibly in front of us in knowledge." They seem childlike and simple. They take him to a large building of age so great that the floor, which is a hard white metal, is "deeply channelled along the more frequented ways." He joins them in a meal of fruit. The Time Traveller attempts to teach them his language, but the people aren't interested. Failing at keeping their attention, he wanders outside to find that there are numerous ruins and no small houses. "Communism" he decides. He concludes that the people of the future have become small, soft and uniform as a natural result of having eliminated the competition he is familiar with. "The institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of physical force," he says. Watching the sunset, he ruminates on how humanity could have reached this state through a slow, evolutionary process. By continuing the trends he saw in the late 19th Century, mankind had bred out human intelligence and vigor. He ends this chapter by saying, "Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough–as most wrong theories are!"
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter V:
The Time Traveller discovers his time machine is missing. After hysterically confronting the "exquisite creatures," who do not understand his dilemma, he falls asleep. In the morning he concludes the time machine was dragged into the bronze pedestal beneath the white sphinx, but he cannot discover a way into it. Deciding that waiting outside the pedestal would be futile, the Time Traveller explores the area. He finds several circular wells "of great depth." From deep below he hears a "thud–thud–thud" sound. He realizes that he doesn't understand how this world works. How are the people clothed, for example. He sees no evidence of factories or any industry on their part. Where are the cemeteries? Who took the time machine? The Time Traveller makes a friend among his hosts, a young woman named Weena, who he saves from drowning. She is like a child to him, following him about and playing. Although she generally appeares fearless, it is clear that she's afraid of the dark. In the meantime, the Time Traveller has noticed white "ape-like" creatures wandering about at night. He doesn't get a clear look at any of them, however. On his fourth morning there he encounters another of these creatures in a ruined building. The ape-like impression is reinforced as it flees him down one of the wells. Suddenly the Time Traveller realizes his earlier theories need refining. Humanity must have evolved into two species, the gentle "upper-worlders," and these more primitive looking folk. He decides the surface dwellers, the Eloi, must be descended from the capitalists of his day and the subterranean people, the Morlocks, are the former laborers. This leaves him with new questions: why did the Morlocks take his machine, and why, if they were the masters, could the Eloi not return the machine to him?
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter VI
Over the next two days, fearful to enter the wells, the Time Traveller widens his explorations. He spies in the distance a "vast green structure," larger than anything he'd seen to this point. Before visiting it, however, he resolves to descend into one of the wells. This distresses Weena considerably, but the Time Traveller proceeds anyway. By match light he finds "great shapes like big machines," that "rose out of the dimness." Also he sees the remains of a meal that tells him the Morlocks are carnivorous. Whenever his match burns out, the Morlock approach him. At first they seem curious, but they grow bolder and attempt to prevent him from leaving. Fortunately they shrink from the match's light, and even though his match supply is severely depleted, the Time Traveller manages to ascend to the upper world where Weena and other Eloi have been waiting.
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions | Check Quiz, Chapters IV-VI
Chapter VII:
The Time Traveller determines to defend himself even if the Eloi won't, so he decides that the green palace he spotted earlier might serve as a fortress. Weena accompanies him on his hike. The revelations from the underground are multiple. Now the Time Traveller understands the Eloi's fear of the waning moon. The Morlock come in the dark and take Eloi as food. The meal he'd seen in the underground was human! His previous theory that the Eloi were the former capitalists or aristocracy and that the Morlocks were the laborers is modified. The relationship between the two is more like predator and prey or rancher and cattle.
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter VIII:
The green palace turns out to be a museum. The Time Traveller finds the exhibits fascinating and walks further and further in, not noticing that the light is dimming. Realizing that night is near, he finds a rude weapon, a metal bar that he snaps off a machine, and, in an unbroken display case, a box of matches and a sealed jar of camphor. He determines that with fire and the iron bar he will be able to defend himself from the Morlocks and break down the bronze doors that stand between him and the time machine.
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter IX:
Night falls as Weena and the Time Traveller hike back to the sphinx. The Time Traveller has gathered wood for a fire. In the forest he spots the ghostly figures of Morlocks skulking about, so he decides to light the wood to scare them away. Surprisingly, Weena treats the fire as a plaything. She's never seen it before. The campfire spreads to some nearby brush and grasses, but the Time Traveller is not worried. He sets off with Weena on his arm. Soon he hears Morlocks in pursuit, then feels their touch on him. A lit match drives them off. Weena has fainted and cannot be roused. He builds a fire. The Morlocks flee. In his exhaustion, the Time Traveller drifts into sleep. When he awakens, his fire has gone out, and the Morlocks are attacking. Believing that all is lost but not willing to die without a fight, the Time Traveller grabs his iron bar and defends himself as best he can. The Morlocks grow panicky, however, and the Time Traveller realizes the forest is burning. Unexpectedly facing the fire's light and heat, the Morlocks abandon their attack. Weena is gone, and the Time Traveller pursues the Morlocks. Stupified by the fire, they offer no resistance, but Weena is not among them. Morning comes and Weena is lost. The Time Traveller determines to return home.
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter X:
The exhausted Time Traveller returns to the place where he first viewed this futuristic world. He reflects ruefully on mankind's fate. Maybe at one time a perfect balance had been achieved between the Upper-Worlders and the Underground support system, but what the society lacked was permanency. The balance tipped and now the Upper-Worlders were no better than stock animals. The Time Traveller goes to the sphinx and discovers the door is open. His machine is in plain view. Knowing the Morlock have set a trap, he enters. The Morlocks don't realize a locked door won't prevent this machine from escaping. The door closes; the Time Traveller can't light a match as he planned, and after a brief, desperate struggle with the Morlocks in the dark, he succeeds in sending his machine plunging through time.
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter XI:
In his rush to leave, the Time Traveller sent his machine forward
through time. He notices, after millions of years have passed, that
the sun is slowing down. Finally, the moon disappears, and the sun,
instead of racing across the sky, bobs on the horizon, a dull, red
light. He
stops the machine. The earth has ceased to rotate. The rocks around
him are red, except on the sunward side where green lichens grow. He
notices the atmosphere is thinner. A crab-like creature attacks him,
and he escapes by sending himself forward a month. He says, "I cannot
convey the sense of abominable desolation that hung over the world."
Using the machine again, he pushes forward in great leaps of time
until he sees the earth in its extremities. The world has grown cold
and dark. Snow falls, and after a brief, frightening eclipse of the
sun, he sees the last remnants of life, a football-sized creature
near the sea that hopped "fitfully" about. Thoroughly sickened, the
Time Traveller climbs back onto his machine.
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions
Chapter XII:
The Time Traveller tells of his return journey. When he arrives in his laboratory, he notices the time machine has moved from one side to the other, the exact distance the Morlocks had dragged his device to hide it in the pedestal beneath the sphinx. He tells his audience that he knows his story is unbelievable. He produces flowers that Weena had put in his pocket. The Medical Man does not recognize the species. Suddenly the Time Traveller doubts his own story, worrying that it might have been a dream. He rushes back to his laboratory, the rest of his dinner guests in tow. The machine is where he left it, and he is reassured. The guests leave, doubting what they heard. The narrator returns the next day to speak to the Time Traveller. He assures his visitor that he can travel in time. "Really and truly I do," he says. The Time Traveller offers to prove his story if the narrator will return after lunch. The narrator remembers that he needs to tell the Time Traveller something, so he goes to the laboratory just in time to see the machine vanish. The narrator says this happened three years ago, and no one has heard from the Time Traveller during that time.
Vocabulary | Discussion Questions | Check Quiz: Chapters VII-XII
Epilogue:
The narrator wonders if the Time Traveller will ever return. He contemplates the implications of the Time Traveller's story, with its elements of the decline and eventual end to human life. Still, the narrator takes some comfort in the dried remnants of Weena's flowers. They serve as evidence "that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man."