The Time Machine 3

Study Guide Questions for Chapter Three

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)

Recklessness

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What had delayed the scheduled completion of the time machine?

2. To what did the Time Traveller compare his feelings of stepping into the “saddle” of the time machine?

3. How did the Time Traveller determine that he had, in fact, moved forward a little in time after his first experimental pull of the lever?

4. What happened with the passage of time the longer the time machine ran?

5. What are some things the Time Traveller observed whilst still moving through time?

6. What danger did the Time Traveller face when dropping out of time travel?

7. What happened because of the suddenness of the Time Traveler’s halt?

8. What was the first thing to catch the time traveller’s attention once he started taking notice of his surroundings?

9. What fears did the Time Traveller express about what he might find once “that hazy curtain” of rain and hail was “altogether withdrawn?”

10. After the rain and hail had ceased, what did the Time Traveller encounter? 

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

1. Why did the Time Traveller compare his original excursion into time to holding a gun to one’s own head? In what way was this comparable?

2. Why was the Time Traveller afraid of the danger of stopping now even though he had previously dismissed it?

3. What does the Time Traveller’s fears about what the men of the future might be like reveal about his own assumptions?

4. In the process of turning the time machine back over, the Time Traveller told us “it struck my chin violently.” How does this connect with the time Traveller’s appearance in chapter two?

5. The Time Traveller said, after turning the time machine rightside up again, that “with this recovery of a prompt retreat my courage recovered.” Why did this help him recover his courage?

6. After observing the “creature” that came up to the Time Traveller he said, “At the sight of him I suddenly regained my confidence.” Why was the sight of him enough to do this?

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

1. Define the vice of recklessness. In what ways might we say the Time Traveller was reckless in this chapter? How might he have exercised greater prudence even whilst taking certain risks for the sake experiment? Do you think that the nature of this journey is inherently reckless and therefore should never be attempted (assuming it were possible)? Is there anything in our own day which is remotely akin to the Time Traveller’s  endeavor? If so, what is it?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. The Time Traveller explained his experience moving through time and how his housekeeper moved like a rocket and the sun and moon moved rapidly in their course. Read 2 Peter 3:8-10. How does this passage address God’s own perspective on time? What are we meant to take away from what Peter wrote about God’s relation to time?