Time Machine Essay, Research Paper
How influential can words be on a situation? Can certain adjectives completely change a setting? H.G. Wells does a great job of using certain words in his story The Time Machine that paint a picture for the reader that is really so far from what he is really saying. Wells successfully does this throughout his story; he uses words like light, dark, evil, harmless, human, and inhumane, when in reality it has nothing to do with the story he is trying to tell.
When the time traveler starts on his journey, he meets many new creatures, the most significant the Eloi and the Morlachs. These two creatures originally were the same species, but as the environment changed, they developed different characteristics and different responsibilities.
The Eloi are simple creatures that live only in daylight, and don t participate in any hard work, or show much effort. The time traveler s favorite of all the Eloi is named Weena. Weena is described as a little doll of a creature (p. 18). How much more innocent, or harmless could she be? This is how all the Eloi are described living their lives above ground during daylight hours only, and spending the remains of the time fearing the dark. Weena dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness to her was the one thing dreadful (p. 18).
Now what is it they dread, what is it in this horrible dark that they speak of? The dreaded dark is the home of the Morlachs. These creatures live in the underworld and are nauseatingly inhumane those pale, chinless faces and great lidless, pinkish eyes! (p. 23) These disgusting creatures are never seen in light, and only make appearances above ground during the darkest of night. The purpose of the Morlachs is to maintain the world above them. All the big machines, and large equipment that mak
Why is it that the Morlachs are described to be so dark, and bad? Are they any different then us? They spend their life trying to make things better and more advanced. The Morlachs eat the Eloi, but only to survive. Humans today show all these characteristics striving for power, the need to control, and survival techniques.
What makes the Eloi so peaceful and perfect? In the story, Weena was drifting down a stream and The main current ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that non make the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little thing which was drowning before their eyes. (p.17) There is no human who would stand there and just watch another living being die when they could do something to help.
Dark, gloomy, shady do these words have to be related with evil? Light, gentle, heavenly do these words have to be related with good? What makes the Eloi so much more superior to the Morlachs? Nothing, if anything, the Morlachs are far more superior to the Eloi. The Morlachs controlled all that was living, plants, animals, people. Without the Morlachs to maintain the world, the Eloi would not survive.
H. G. Wells does a great job of making the Morlachs look like nothing slaves that spend there meaningless time down below working for the great Eloi above, when really the Eloi are simply the Morlach s cattle. They grow the Eloi, make them healthy and then feast upon them. Everyday we paint pictures in each other s minds with all the big words and metaphors that we use, when really we are trying to tell a simple story, with a simple idea.