| Introduction:
The allure and paradoxes of time travel |
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Is it possible?
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Effects of time
travel narratives:
- we confront
ourselves as aliens
- meditate on
the uncanny inter-relatedness of events (proverb; butterfly
effect)
- they open
a sublime horizon
- question:
what are we here for?
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H.G. Wells
- English, born
in 1866 in modest circumstances
- From school
teacher to famous author
- First big
success: The Time Machine, 1888-1895
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Socialism:
- optimism about
the future: amelioration
- but, class
struggle
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Darwinism
- each new environment
creates a context for a "struggle for existence and survival"
- nature selects
for traits that offer survival advantages
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| Time
Travel as Entertainment |
| Frame narrative:
what purpose? |
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The new idea,
the novem
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Why is time so
difficult to grasp?
- "I don't
know who discovered water, but I know it wasn't a fish"
(McLuhan)
- From the 3
dimensions of space to the 4th dimension of time
- Does Time
Traveler's argument prove the possibility of time travel?
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| Time
Traveler as Investigator |
| Features of this
future world upon first encounter |
| Characteristics
of the Eloi |
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The Time Traveler
as investigator
- The essential
opacity of another world: "Conceive the tale of London
which a Negro, fresh from Central Africa, would take back
to his tribe!" (57)
- Time Traveler
develops a series of speculations
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1st speculation:
concerning the evolution of the Eloi
- breakdown
of gender difference (p. 46-47)
- "decay"
of civilization (p. 50)
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2nd speculation:
division of humans into two species (p. 74)
- Morlock food
- Time Traveler
regresses to savage beast: "Nature red in tooth and
claw"
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| 3rd speculation:
what brought the decline of humanity? (p. 93) |
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General questions:
do you agree that human history will take the direction
described in this novel? What works against the Time Traveler's
speculation? Where do you think the Time Traveler went on
his final journey?
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| Some
of the Paradoxes of Time Travel |
| Clifford Simak,
"Over the River and Through the Woods": the past as a refuge
for the future |
| Back to the
Future: the pleasures and dangers of revising our past |
| The Terminator
(1984); La Jetee (Fr. 1962); 12 Monkeys (1995):
a time loop: where the future revises the present |
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