The Time Machine 11

Study Guide Questions for Chapters Ten and Eleven

If you are looking for the beginning of the study of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of available book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Grief, Appearance vs. Reality, Ignorance, Despair, Nihilism, Fear

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What did the Time Traveller reflect upon when he returned to “the same beautiful scene” where he had first entered into this future reality?

2. After waking from his daytime sleep, what did the Time Traveller discover as he approached the Sphinx?

3. What happened as the Time Traveller approached the time machine?

4. What had happened with the relation of Earth to the Sun by the time the Time Traveller stopped his machine again?

5. Describe the environment and creatures as the Time Traveller saw them in this yet farther future time?

6. At the farthest range of the Time Traveller’s journey into the future approximately how many years had he gone forward in time?

7. What was the temperature like on Earth at the farthest part of the Time Traveller’s journey?

8. What are some thoughts and feelings the Time Traveller related having as he looked upon the Earth’s last days?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. The Time Traveller compared the lives of the Eloi to that of cattle in our own day. In what ways is this true and in what ways are they still substantially different?

2. The Time Traveller lamented that the “human intellect….had committed suicide.” What did he mean by that? 

3. The Time Traveller uses the phrase “mother necessity” when describing how things came to be as he now experienced them. What did he mean by “mother necessity?”

4. What might be inferred from the condition of the time machine when the Time Traveller came to it again?

5. What might be offered in explanation as to the kind of life that the Time Traveller encountered so many more years in the future after leaving the Morlocks and Eloi?

6. Why would the Time Traveller be “drawn to the mystery of earth’s fate” rather than speedily heading back to his home time and safety?

7. What vice most seems to chracaterize the Time Traveller’s decisions throughout this chapter (and throughout the whole story)?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. The Time Traveller pushed himself to get as close as possible to Earth’s final moments and the picture was very bleak. Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that the Earth’s destiny is to become like that which H. G. Wells imagines in this story, (i.e. that everything will come to an absolute and final end, no more humans, no more animals, no more stories or art or anything at all), how would that make you feel and what effect would it have upon your decisions and actions in your life? Do you think knowing the world would end in this way would make your life more meaningful, less meaningful, or leave things about the same? Explain why you think as you do. 

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Revelation 21:1-22:5. Compare and contrast this picture of Earth’s future with that of the H. G. Wells’ vision of the future. Why are they so completely different? How does (or should) knowing what God says about the future of the Earth impact the way you live your life today?