Chapter one summary of thr time machine
Answers
Explanation:
The book opens on the narrator at a dinner party of well-educated, upper-class professionals and specialists, including his friend, an eminent scientist whom he calls the Time Traveller. The Time Traveller is describing to his guests principles of science and math, including the notion that time (or “duration”) is a traversable dimension just like length or width. This builds up to an explanation of how time travel might be possible. The assembled guests react with skepticism and excitement, finally demanding that the Time Traveller prove to them that he has actually created a mechanism for traveling in time.
The opening introduces scientific and mathematical concepts that don’t themselves add up to explaining how time travel is possible, but are meant to give readers a taste of the complexity of the concept. By highlighting the intellect and ambition of the Time Traveller, Wells is deliberately setting up a contrast to the humanlike species of the future who have degenerated almost past recognition. It’s important to note, too, the social class of the assembled guests. The Time Traveller, an important scientist, is wealthy, successful, and well-educated, and so are his guests. This implicates the Time Traveller in the class-related violence that the book will soon explore.
THEMES
Inequality and Social Class Theme Icon Technology and Progress Theme Icon
The Time Traveller goes to his laboratory and returns with a small model of a machine made of metal and ivory. The group of dinner guests examines it to be sure it’s not a trick, and the Time Traveller points out that one of the bars is glimmering as though it is only partially there. The Time Traveller points to a lever and says that when he presses it the machine will disappear into the future. A skeptical guest insists that he depress the lever himself, and when he does, the machine disappears. The only person not stunned is the Time Traveller.