The Time Machine 8

Study Guide Questions for Chapter Seven

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)

Light vs. Darkness, Fear, Awe, Sympathy

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What had the Time Traveller “hitherto” imagined about his circumstances that turned out not to be the case?

2. How had the Time Traveller’s “second hypothesis” turned out to be incorrect?

3. What did the Time Traveller determine he must do before he could “sleep again” in that time?

4. To what place did the Time Traveller decide he should attempt to go?

5. The Time Traveller temporarily paused his narrative to his guests. What did he produce from his pocket?

6. How did the Time Traveller imagine the Morlocks might interpret his trip into their domain?

7. What gave the Time Traveller a sense of “friendly comfort” as he sat up through the night?

8. What realization came to the Time Traveller with a “sudden shiver?”

9. What did the Time Traveller say was not a “deep-seated instinct?”

10. What had the Time Traveller planned to do concerning Weena?

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

1. What did the Time Traveller mean when he said, “The Eloi, like the Carlovingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility?”

2. Why might the Time Traveller have wanted to go to the “Palace of Green Porcelain?”

3. What might be surmised from Weena’s fascination with the Time Traveller’s pockets? 

4. Why did the Time Traveller find comfort from looking upon the stars?

5. The Time Traveller stated, “Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.” Why did looking upon the stars have this effect upon him?

6. Concerning the dominance of the Morlocks over the Eloi, Time Traveller “tried to look at the thing in a scientific spirit” but found that he could not. Why was he not able to see things as he wanted to as a man of science?

7. In what way do we see the Time Traveller prioritizing tasks that he needs to accomplish? Why does he prioritize them in the order he does?

8. Why would the Time Traveller plan to take Weena back to his own time? What do you think motivated this plan?

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

1. Much of the Time Traveller’s theorizing in this story assumes the idea that adversity (difficult circumstances) causes mankind to work hard, be ingenuitive, and create a better world. Conversely, he assumes that times of ease and plenty cause men to become slothful and weak in mind and body. Do you agree or disagree with this thesis and why? 

2. Following on from the previous Rhetoric question, and assuming the Time Traveller's social theory is correct, do you think this principle applies to all living things or to mankind only? If you argue that it is true of all living things, what is an example of this in animal life? If you think it is only true of human beings, why do you think that is the case?

3. Again, following upon the thesis in the first Rhetoric question, if this view is correct what might be the result of this in the long-term for the Eloi and Morlocks in light of their present circumstances we have read about?

4. The Time Traveller’s moment of star gazing caused him to temporarily feel the smallness of all of his fears and, indeed, all of human experience. Share a time in which you have experienced something similar. What caused you to feel the magnitude of the universe of which your own affairs are but an infinitesimal drop in the bucket?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Psalm 8. What does this passage of Scripture have in common with our present reading and how should it impact our lives as followers of Christ?

2. Read Ecclesiastes 7:14. How can we relate this passage to our current reading? What should we learn from it?