Referat H. G. Wells: The Time Machine - The author, The main actors, The story

H. G. Wells: The Time Machine

The author

HERBERT GEORGE WELLS was born in 1866 in Bromley/Kent. He is still famous for his utopian Sci-Fi-Stories. "The Time Machine" was written in 1895 and it´s still the story that is significant for Wells. He also wrote the books "The Country of the Blind" (1901), "Kipps" (1905), "A Modern Utopia" (1905)" and "An Outline of History" (1920). Wells always dreamed of a socialist world, but the World Wars changed his mind. Wells died 1946 in London.

The main actors

THE TIME TRAVELLER: He is the main person. The Time Traveller is a kind of eccentric scientist, he builds up a time machine and travels alone into the year 802 701.

THE EDITOR, THE NEWSPAPER-WRITER, THE MEDICAL MAN:

The people who are sitting together with the Time Traveller while he is telling his story about his journey through time. They don´t believe any word of what the time traveller says.

WEENA: The girl that the Time Traveller meets in 802 701. She is very small, just about 3,5 ft., and behaves quite childish.

THE TELLER OF THE STORY: He tells the whole story from the first page to the last. He is also present while the Time Traveller tells his story.

The story

The story begins in the Time Travellers House. The Time Traveller, the Editor, the Newspaper-writer, the Medical Man and the teller of the story are sitting together and listen to the Time Travellers story. The Time Traveller presents them his idea of a time machine. First they don´t believe him, but then the Time Traveller shows them a small model of his time machine and after pressing a few buttons it disappears. Surprised the men go home.

The Time Traveller wants to test the real, large time machine. He sits down on it and presses the START-Button. Then he slowly moves into future. After a while, he puts on speed.  

The Time Traveller stops the machine in 802 701. It is standing opposite to a giant white Sphinx made out of bronze. Some small people are running towards him. Later he decides to call them the Little People. They welcome him in a friendly way and  celebrate a strange procession with him. They look quite happy about his appearance. But the next day, as the Time Traveller returns from the procession, the time machine has gone. He´s looking for it everywhere, but he can´t find it. So he decides to wait some time, as there´s no reason to leave 802 701 so early.

The fourth morning, the Time Traveller visits an old ruin nearby the house where he sleeps. All of a sudden he notices two eyes watching him. The Time Traveller strikes a match, and the animal runs away, just into a well. As he follows the animal, he realizes that it is spider-like. The Time Traveller also goes down the well, and he finds out that those animals are meat-eaters.  He escapes from the animals and is able to flee.

After that day, he knows that there are two peoples in 802 701: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are the people that live in the upper-world, the Morlocks live in the under-world, in the exile. The Time Traveller also recognizes that the Morlocks want to kill him and he thinks that they´ve got his time machine. He decides to go back to the under-world and look for his time machine. On the other hand he supposes that the machine could be in the Sphinx, but he is not able to open the bronze doors to take a look inside.

One day he gets to know Weena, a girl from the folk of the Little People. He saves her life and so she decides to follow him everywhere. She shows him the way to the so-called "Green Museum", a museum where are old things that could be useful for him.

After about two days they arrive, and he finds some matches and an iron bar, which can be used as a weapon.

On their way back at night, they are attacked by some morlocks. The Time Traveller is able to kill one of them and to hurt some others with the iron bar. Suddenly all the Morlocks flee, and the Time Traveller notices that the wood in which they have been fighting is burning. During his escape he looses Weena to some Morlocks.

The next day he arrives in the town where the Eloi live. The bronze doors on the Sphinx are open. Happily he takes a look inside and.he finds his time machine.

So he leaves 802 701 to travel back  into the past again.

When he arrives back home, he realizes that he has only gone for several hours. He visits the men which he had told about the time machine to inform them about his adventure. But as the Time Traveller sees that nobody believes him, he sits down on his machine again to look for a better place in time.