16/09/2019 SparkNotes: The Time Machine: Summary

THE TIME MACHINE

SUMMARY
by: H.G. Wells

SUMMARY CHARACTERS FURTHER STUDY WRITING HELP TABLE OF CONTENTS

Summary

A group of men, including the narrator, is listening to the Time Traveller discuss
his theory that time is the fourth dimension. The Time Traveller produces a
miniature time machine and makes it disappear into thin air. The next week, the
guests return, to nd their host stumble in, looking disheveled and tired. They
sit down after dinner, and the Time Traveller begins his story.

The Time Traveller had nally nished work on his time machine, and it
rocketed him into the future. When the machine stops, in the year 802,701 AD,
he nds himself in a paradisiacal world of small humanoid creatures called
Eloi. They are frail and peaceful, and give him fruit to eat. He explores the area,
but when he returns he nds that his time machine is gone. He decides that it
has been put inside the pedestal of a nearby statue. He tries to pry it open but
cannot. In the night, he begins to catch glimpses of strange white ape-like
creatures the Eloi call Morlocks. He decides that the Morlocks live below
ground, down the wells that dot the landscape. Meanwhile, he saves one of
the Eloi from drowning, and she befriends him. Her name is Weena. The Time
Traveller nally works up enough courage to go down into the world of
Morlocks to try to retrieve his time machine. He nds that matches are a good
defense against the Morlocks, but ultimately they chase him out of their realm.
Frightened by the Morlocks, he takes Weena to try to nd a place where they
will be safe from the Morlocks' nocturnal hunting. He goes to what he calls the
Palace of Green Porcelain, which turns out to be a museum. There, he nds
more matches, some camphor, and a lever he can use as a weapon. That
night, retreating from the Morlocks through a giant wood, he accidentally

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starts a re. Many Morlocks die in the re and the battle that ensues, and
Weena is killed. The exhausted Time Traveller returns to the pedestal to nd
that it has already been pried open. He strides in con dently, and just when
the Morlocks think that they have trapped him, he springs onto the machine
and whizzes into the future.

The Time Traveller makes several more stops. In a distant time he stops on a
beach where he is attacked by giant crabs. The bloated red sun sits motionless
in the sky. He then travels thirty million years into the future. The air is very thin,
and the only sign of life is a black blob with tentacles. He sees a planet eclipse
the sun. He then returns, exhausted, to the present time. The next day, he
leaves again, but never returns.

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