The Time Machine
The Time Machine (English Original title The Time Machine ) is a science fiction novel by HG Wells.
This 1895 released classic of science-fiction literature is the first literary description of a journey into the future, which is accomplished by means of a time machine. The novel was filmed several times (see: The Time Machine and The Time Machine ).
Content
The time traveler, who is not named in the novel by the name, has been built in the late 19th century, a machine with which he can move in the fourth dimension, time. He explains to a group of skeptical friends the principle of this device very descriptive and also for the modern reader quite understandable.
In his first trip to the future, he reached the year 802 701. There he finds the world of two contrasting types of creatures human lineage inhabited that have evolved over thousands of years from the two extreme social classes of Victorian England to two races: the aboveground Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks.
The Eloi seem to live carefree and happy, but completely unreflective and effeminate in a tropical paradise, look similar to today's people and all seem to be relatively young. It is the narrator initially incomprehensible, who feeds and clothes, because they obviously need never work. On the other hand, seems to be a nameless fear of the dark, especially the moonless nights, their idyll oppose.
The Morlocks, after feeling the time traveler and narrator ugly, ape-like man-eating creatures, live in underground caves. In his research he finds that they operate there, huge machines, allowing in this way the life of the aboveground Eloi and preserved. At first, it seems to him as if they were their slaves, as in the past, the working class was exploited and brought prosperity to the upper classes. Gradually it dawns on him that the relationship has now reversed. The Morlocks, the Eloi in behavior as the farmer, the cattle, they take care of their physical well-being, because they need it as food. In the dark nights they get above their meals.
From the year 802 701 from traveling the "time travelers " much further into the future. There he sees in the eternal twilight of the stationary earth in front of a giant red fireball that was once the sun, crab -like and ball -like, bouncing living beings and is thus confronted with the end of humanity. On his return, in the presence of his friends the story did not believe him, and he decides one more time to travel into the future, this time armed with a camera to document his discoveries. But from this trip he never returns.
Rating
The novel represents an indictment of the class differences and against the oppression of man by man in the 19th century - in both popular cinema films of 1960 and 2002, this essential aspect, however, was hidden. Wells uses this literary genre - in British tradition, for example, Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels with his - to the England of his time exposing satirical and critical of society to question. The novel is thus one of the first of the genus dystopia (see utopian literature).
Films
Several film adaptations, both for the cinema and for television, have taken the novel for submission, but supplements it with additional scenes and motifs or omitted significant motifs.
Literary influence
Egon Friedell wrote a satire about the novel under the title The trip in a time machine ( posthumously published in 1946 ). Later title: The Return of the Time Machine.
1908 wrote the popular German writer Carl Grunert a sequel to Wells ' story in which a young man named Maurignac Wells' finds a time machine and travels back in time with it. In this novella, titled Pierre Maurignacs Adventure ( in the collection "The Martian Spy" appeared ), also appears HG Wells himself briefly. This story was published in the GDR under the title " The time trial bike " in the eponymous anthology in 1974.
Wrote in 1914 Wilhelm Bastine a humorous sequel to Wells' story titled Time Regained machine ( Illustrated space library Volume 5 ).
In The son of the Sorcerer by Wolfgang Holbein the Morlocks and Eloi occur also. In this book, they are visited by HG Wells and some fictional characters.
Christopher Priest linked in his novel Sir William's machine of 1976, the events of the novels Wells War of the Worlds and The Time Machine.
Charles Alexander wrote the 1979 time-travel mystery novel Escape to Today ( Time After Time ) by HG Wells as protagonists.
Appeared in 1995 with ships time (Time Ships) a continuation of Stephen Baxter. This picks up on the original theme and applies it consistently. It is underpinned by current scientific knowledge.
In the novel The spark of Chronos by Thomas Finn appeared on a time machine, which is identical to that of Wells 's novel and later acquired by the appearing as a minor character Wells.
Ronald Wright tied with his 1998 novel The beauty of that ancient city (A Scientific Romance ) also to Wells ' time machine. Here the protagonist finds the time machine before returning empty and travels to a time nearer future.
2010, the novel was published in The Geography of Time ( Mapa del tiempo ) by Félix J. Palma. This work also makes use of the time machine - and the person of its creator.
In the same year the novel was published in The Night of the Morlocks: The Time Machine returns by KW Jeter. It is similar to time ships as a sequel. In this the time machine the Morlocks falls in the future in the hands. With the help of the Morlocks now start an invasion of Victorian London. The story is also a key work on the origins of Steampunk.
At this include the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The first volume of which contains a short story, in which Allan Quatermain encounters the time travelers from the time machine.
Links and Reviews
- Review with regard to the socio-critical aspects of the work
- Review with further interpretations