The Time Machine 5

Study Guide Questions for Ch. 5 (First Half)

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!

Last line of this reading is mid chapter and states: “Well, on the third day of my visit, that was how the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One presented itself to me!”

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

Hope vs. Despair, Prudence, Patience

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What startling discovery did the Time Traveller make at the beginning of this chapter?

2. What did the Time Traveller do as a result of this discovery (trying to remedy the problem)?

3. The morning after this startling discovery, in what manner did the Time Traveller reason with himself as to how he should proceed?

4. Describe the Time Travellers feelings as he attempted to inquire about his situation with the “little people” around him.

5. As he examined the place where the time machine had been, what things did he discover?

6. How did the little people behave whenever the Time Traveller mentioned or pointed to the bronze pedestal?

7. What did the Time Traveller think he heard behind the door of the bronze pedestal?

8. The Time Traveller “laughed aloud” when he thought of something. What was it?

9. What did the Time Traveller learn about what seemed to be missing from the language of the little people?

10. Of what “peculiar feature” among the structures of this time did the Time Traveller take note?

11. What were some of the mysteries troubling the Time Traveller concerning the world he was observing?

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

1. What are some factors which made the disappearance of the time machine shocking not only from the standpoint of fear but also from the standpoint of the unlikelihood of its disappearance? In other words, why had the Time Traveller previously not had any fear that something like this might happen?

2. What might be the significance of the Time Traveller’s mention of “some white animal” which he saw “in the dim light” by the pedestal of the Sphinx?

3. Why was the Time Traveller so enraged by the little people’s laughter as he inquired about his time machine?

4. What might be inferred from the reaction of the little people wherever the Time Traveller gestured toward the pedestal of the Sphinx?

5. What did the Time Traveller mean by saying, “I am too Occidental for a long vigil?” What is he trying to communicate about the inhabitants of Western Civilization? 

6. What should be inferred from the fact that “in the course of a day or two” the little people had forgotten all about the Time Traveller’s frantic and disturbing behavior?

7. What are the implications of the fact that the language of the little people was “almost exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any, abstract terms, or little use of figurative language?” Why is this important to note?

8. What was the Time Traveller’s point about the man from “Central Africa” and how did it relate to his own experience?

9. What are some possible solutions as to the problems the Time Traveller enumerated at the end of this reading? 

   1. What might account for the lack of crematoria or burial sites? 

   2. What might account for the complexities of the little people's clothing despite no apparent industry anywhere or by any of them? 

   3. What impetus or reasoning might explain why they would move his time machine?

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

1. After the Time Traveller calmed down from his frantic episode he took time to reason with himself about the need to proceed in a calm and collected fashion. What is the relationship between fear and reason? How can reason be used to address our fears (whether those fears be rational or irrational)? Should the proper use of reason remove all fear or not? Explain your answer carefully.

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. The Time Traveller calmed down and used reason to work through his seemingly impossible situation, which was good and wise. Read 2 Chronicles 20 and then write about what else a Chrsitian should do (in addition to the use of reason) when faced with a very difficult, seemingly impossible, situation.