Perfection in Wells' the Time Term Paper

The Time Traveller can only believe that the Eloi and Morlock's are what are left from the human race. His adventures with them bring him no hope for the future - at least in the sense that we would have reached perfection as a society. Bergonzi notes, "The image of the 'golden age' as it has presented itself to him on his arrival has been destroyed" (Bergonzi). We read that the traveler discovers an "altogether new element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks -- a something inhuman and malign" (Wells 68). Upon watching the Morlocks work, he must abandon his original notion that the Eloi were superior beings. Instead, they are inferior and clearly the Morlock's victims. Bergonzi states that the traveler's experience underground has "shattered his previous euphoria" (Bergonzi). His shattered dream serves as a warning for the rest of us as we soar into the future thinking that we will evolve into perfection.

Perfection is something that cannot be attained but surrendering to that premise only leads to further destruction. Kathryn Hume maintains that the Time Machine is a "social satire to justify our expecting a reasonably coherent warning" (Hume).

She also notes that the novel "explores entropic decline, but refuses to give us ingenious humanity striving ever more ferociously to put off the inevitable" (Hume).Having said that, the Time Traveler learned much about mankind and himself from his explorations. In retrospect, he states, "So, as I see it, the Upper-world man had drifted towards his feeble prettiness, and the Under-world to mere mechanical industry. But that perfect state had lacked one thing even for mechanical perfection -- absolute permanency" (Wells 82). The terror of the two races that the Time Traveller encountered is that they represent the culmination of the socialist and capitalist segments of society. This statement is a sad commentary on the future and evolution of man. Without something permanent, society will certainly devolve. The irony is that permanency is something that we are taught to believe never lasts. However, it is like the goal of perfection - we must strive to attain them or else we will fall victim to our more savage ways.

Works Cited

Bernard Bergonzi, "The Time Machine: An Ironic Myth." GALE Resource Database. http://www.infotrac.galegroup.com Site Accessed April 04, 2008.

Kathryn Hume, "Eat or Be Eaten H.G. Wells's the Time Machine." GALE Resource Database. http://www.infotrac.galegroup.com Site Accessed April 04, 2008.

Wells, H.G. The Time Machine. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. http://etext.virginia.edu Site Accessed April 04, 2008......