The Time Machine 4

Study Guide Questions for Chapter Four

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)

Prudence, Indulgence

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What did the Time Traveller notice “at once” about the creature which had come to see him?

2. What did the Time Traveller do to make sure the Time Machine could not accidentally be engaged?

3. From where did the creatures think the Time Traveller had come?

4. What were the buildings like into which the creatures led the Time Traveller?

5. What did the creatures the Time Traveller met eat for food?

6. What did the Time Traveller attempt to learn from the creatures?

7. What did the Time Traveller say turned out to be the case about his “simple” and “plausible” explanation for all the things he saw?

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

1. What might we surmise from the fact that the creatures the Time Traveller met did not show “any sign of fear?”

2. The Time Traveller’s expectation was that “the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything.” Why had he made this assumption?

3. The Time Traveller described the world he saw as a “long neglected and yet weedless garden.” How could both of those things be so?

4. Why might all the buildings the Time Traveller encountered have a “dilapidated” look to them? What does this suggest about the state of things on earth at this point? 

5. The Time Traveller noticed, “apparently, the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished” and he then ascribes this as being a result of “communism.” Why does he make that connection?

6. What did the Time Traveller mean when he said “my walking powers were evidently miraculous?”

7. How did the Time Traveller attempt to account for the marked similarities between the two sexes of this race of creatures?

8. What did the Time Traveller mean when he said, “Strength is the outcome of need: security sets a premium on feebleness?”

9. How did the Time Traveller attempt to account for what he called “the sunset of mankind?” In other words, what did he think reduced mankind to this feeble state?

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

1. The Time Traveller explained that he made efforts to gain an understanding of the language the creatures were speaking. How could one go about attempting to understand a completely new language without any books or instructors available? What would be the most important things to attempt to learn first? What would be the most difficult kinds of things to learn how to discuss in that new language? Difficult though it may be, what about the nature of language itself makes it possible to learn a different language from one’s own native tongue?

2. Is work a blessing or a curse? State and defend your answer thoroughly and with good reasoning.

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Genesis 1:26 - 2:31. Compare and contrast the Time Traveller’s explanation of the way things were (as he found them) with how God intends them to be. In what ways does this story portray a view of humanity as delinquent and failing to observe God’s purposes for them concerning things like work and family?

2. Read Revelation 21:1 - 22:5. The Bible begins and ends in a garden of Paradise. How does the biblical notion of a garden paradise contrast with the situation we see (so far) in The Time Machine?