September 3rd: The Time Machine (Part 1)

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Literature and Culture Update

Some of your classmates told me that the subtopic "science fiction" for this course wasn't part of the description when you signed up. I have no clue why that was the case, but, well, it is. Try not to get bogged down in the fact that you hate science fiction: remember, these are just stories, and some are more entertaining than others. Likewise, don't get annoyed that we aren't explaining the validity of interstellar travel, locating the Roswell aliens, or learning Vulcan. Fans of this genre are probably not too keen on having the stories looked at from a cultural perspective because it "ruins" their experience. Critical thinking will do that--it'll ruin you. It's only temporary while you reinstrumentalize yourself. Want to learn how to reinstrumentalize yourself? Check out the anime show Evangelion: Death and Rebirth--that's sci fi!

There are many ways to interpret Literature. If this were just an English class, we'd be going over types of interpretation and applying them to a variety of texts. Alternatively, in an English class, we might focus on a few works from several authors and look for similarities in their novels, poems, or short stories. Besides the Time Machine and "The Star"--both by H. G. Wells--we aren't reading multiple works by a single author. Instead, we're surveying this genre in order to find what themes reoccur and what the texts say about the cultures from which they come and how we (today) might find similar meanings in the texts of our time.  

The Time Machine (1895)

So this comes out 14 years before F. T. Marinetti's "Futurist Manifesto." Any significance? Of course, the Western world was well into the Industrial Revolution and society was being ordered to maintain the economic machine and, therefore, maintain society. For today, let's consider Wells's imagination and the reasons someone might conceive of going forward (or back) in time. We'll definitely get into how this text is a product of its culture (and how the movie adaptations are of their respective time periods), but let's focus on main features of this text and how you responded to it during your reading.

I know it's difficult in this class to partner up, but consider the following themes in the novella:

• Gathering around to smoke, drink, and discuss issues of time travel...who are these guys?
• Narrator's role in (re)telling the story
• Escaping/transcending one's time (and place)
• Dealing with foreigners in a foreign land (and time)

Let's consider the Time Traveller's* motivations for leaving 1899. More questions to consider with neighbors:

*This is Wells's spelling: t-r-a-v-e-l-l-e-r. The double 'l' is chiefly a British variant, so, because Wells uses it, I'll use it when we refer to his character.

• Why go into the future?
• What does the Time Traveller do when he gets to 802,700?
• What does his following assumption say about his cultural frame of reference (his values):
  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! (p. 37)
• What is the understanding of knowledge in the book? Is knowledge power? A problem or burden? (p. 48)

Time Traveller's Comments

The Time Traveller makes observations and extrapolates on how the Eloi/Morlock world came to be. Like many European intellectuals of his time, H. G. Wells theorized about the merits of socialism as an economic system. One reading of a socialist vision of the future is utopia--one day all the evils of the world will be solved. Is that unique to socialism? What other theories of society or just human speculations end with utopia?

Places where Wells mentions communism (let's not worry about the disctinction between the two for our purposes with this novella):

P. 7: "'To discover a society,' said I, 'erected on a strictly communistic basis.'" One possible finding in the future.

P. 35: "'Communism,'" said I to myself....Then, in a flash, I perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb....In costume, and in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other, these people of the future were alike."

P. 60: "At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key to the whole position..

P. 61: "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 labour."

Places where Wells mentions women's and men's roles:

P. 35: "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."

Places where Wells mentions Science and Technological imporvements--bettering human life with agriculture and medicine:

P. 38: "The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any contagious diseases during all my stay."

P. 37: "After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of to-day are still in the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but a little department of the field of human disease, but even so, it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently.."

So how is the Time Traveller separated from the Eloi? His desire to know. On p. 64 he explains "It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that drove me further and further afield in my exploring expeditions" to get to the Palace of Green Porcelain. Why does the TIme Traveller privilege knowledge?

Why did the Time Traveller disappear for 3 years?

"Filby, an argumentative person with red hair..."

In the novella, Filby is just one of the observers, but in both versions of the movie, he's a friend and mentor. The novella is mainly the narrator's retelling of the Time Traveller's story. The novella and the 1960's film show science being discussed. Although time travel is just theoretical (is it?), the various men in the room contemplate the possibility of actually traveling through time. This is an important allegory to how science gets verified: new ideas must be vetted (tested and approved) by an established group--usually a discourse community.

Establishing science seems to be the most important part of The 1960 film, but all texts--novella, 1960 film, and 2004 film--try to show the Time Traveller's motivation. His motivations are slightly different in each text, but each Time Traveller wants to transcend his place in time.

Questions to consider for the film clips:

• Representations of war or social collapse
• Preoccupation with death
• Problems with attempting to change the past
• Role of women in the world(s) of science

Next Class

We'll continue with H.G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895) and discuss his short story "The Star" (1897) in the Anthology. I'll have the next reflection prompt for Thursday (9/5) up on Moodle2 soon.

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