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H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine is a classic science fiction novel that explores themes of social class, evolution, and the future of humanity through the story of an unnamed

Time Traveller.

Here’s a breakdown of the plot:

• The Time Traveller’s Invention: The story begins with a brilliant, yet eccentric, scientist who has invented a machine capable of traversing the fourth dimension: time.

• Journey to the Future: To the skepticism of his dinner guests, he embarks on a journey into the distant future, arriving in the year 802,701 AD.

• Encountering the Eloi: In this future, the Time Traveller discovers a race of delicate, childlike beings called the Eloi. They live in a seemingly idyllic, pastoral world, marked by overgrown ruins of past civilizations. The Eloi are beautiful and enjoy a carefree existence, but they also display a notable lack of intelligence, curiosity, and strength.

• Discovering the Morlocks: The Time Traveller soon discovers a darker side to this seemingly utopian future: the Morlocks. These ape-like creatures live underground and are the descendants of the working class. They are responsible for maintaining the machinery that supports the Eloi’s lifestyle but also prey on the Eloi, emerging at night to hunt and feed on them.

• Social Commentary and Evolution: Wells uses the stark contrast between the Eloi and Morlocks to critique Victorian society and its deep class divisions. The Eloi, representing the privileged upper class, have degenerated into weak and helpless creatures due to a lack of necessity for intellectual or physical exertion. The Morlocks, representing the working class, have become brutalized and adapted to a life of darkness and labor, developing strength but losing their humanity.

• Lost in Time: The Morlocks steal the Time Traveller’s time machine, forcing him to navigate the dangers of this future world to retrieve it. He is aided in his quest by Weena, a young Eloi woman he befriends after saving her from drowning.

• Further into the Future: After retrieving his time machine, the Time Traveller ventures even further into the distant future, witnessing a dying Earth under a dimming sun, with all life eventually fading into oblivion.

• Return and Doubts: He returns to his own time, recounting his incredible story to his dinner guests, who remain largely skeptical and disbelieving.

• Final Departure: Undeterred, the Time Traveller sets out once again, intending to gather photographic proof of his journey, but he never returns, leaving his fate and the ultimate trajectory of humanity to the reader’s imagination.