days of the earth. “Beyond these lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It
would be hard to convey the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of
sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of
our lives - all that was over.” (Wells, 66). While the events of the book indicate a
bleak future, devoid of any humanity, a voice, subtly stating opinions simply by the
way it presents things is always there, reinforcing a human perspective, judgement,
and inhabitance in the events.
" Studying the actual events in the story, the whole plot takes place over the
course of two Thursday evenings. During the first, the Time Traveler discusses his
concept and theory, testing out a miniature time machine for his guests. The second
Thursday, the Time Traveler arrives late, disheveled, and launches into a story
describing his adventures in the far future. He describes traveling hundreds of
thousands of years, all the way until the death of the earth, its last day. This
recounting takes up the majority of the book, 52 out of 66 pages. Yet, his traveling
hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of years into the future all takes place in the
span of one Thursday afternoon. Here, we see that Wells plays with concept of time,
fitting such a vast stretch of time into a normal, Thursday night. Although humans
are not supposed to be present for the end of the world, or even the year 802,701,
Wells has saturated it in human presence. He accomplishes this not just by sticking
a character in these futuristic and alien settings, but by having him recall them in
front of an audience. He turns the future, the time past our extinction, a time we are
not supposed to be privilege to, into entertainment for his dinner guests. Intentional
or not, Wells’ story shows the beliefs at the time, the changing views, and the
hesitation to give up old ideas.
" We get the same message of duality when the narrator, or Time Traveler
injects in his own story to comment, temporarily splicing the present time of the
35!