The Time Machine 9

Study Guide Questions for Chapter Eight

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)

Nihilism, Joy, Providence, Recklessness

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. When the Time Traveller arrived at the Palace of Green Porcelain what did he find about the state it was in?

2. What did the Palace turn out to be?

3. What was contained (or had been contained) in the various areas which the Time Traveller explored in the Palace?

4. What did the Time Traveller realize about the room of machinery only once Weena “came very close” to his side?

5. What weapon did the Time Traveller acquire and how did he get it?

6. What desire nearly overcame the Time Traveller once he had his weapon in hand?

7. What else did the Time Traveller find which caused him to rejoice to the point of dancing?

8. What “irresistible impulse” did the Time Traveller succumb to whilst looking at the ancient idols?

9. What did the Time Traveller find which he was disappointed to realize were just “dummies?”

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

1. What might be inferred about both the Eloi and the Morlocks from the fact that this museum has been allowed to fall into disrepair?

2. Why might the Time Traveller have been more interested in finding a library than in looking at more fossils?

3. What might be inferred about the Time Traveller by his love for machinery?

4. Why might the Time Traveller have had the urge to go kill some Morlocks with his new weapon?

5. What did the Time Traveller mean when, after finding the deteriorated remains of the books, he said, “Had I been a literary man I might, perhaps, have moralized upon the futility of all ambition?”

6. Why would the Time Traveller have felt compelled to write his name on the idol?

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

1. The Time Traveller said of Weena, “She always seemed to me, I fancy, more human than she was, perhaps because her affection was so human.” Offer a definition of the term human. What marks the boundaries between what is and is not human? How is this question of particular importance, and perhaps a particular difficulty, if one presumes the dictates of Darwinian evolution? What kind of social difficulties could come from the belief that a creature could evolve into (and out of) being human? 

2. The Time Traveller recounted, “I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of an intellectual age, that I gave no thought to the possibilities it presented. Even my preoccupation about the Time Machine receded a little from my mind.” In what ways can distraction be a good thing and in what ways can it be a bad thing? What kinds of things can cause distraction? Should we ever seek distraction intentionally for ourselves? Should we ever intentionally seek to distract others?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Ecclesiastes 2:24-26. How does this passage of Scripture address the Time Traveller’s reflection on the “futility of all ambition?” What should we take away from this passage of Scripture?