The Time Machine Compared To Nineteen Eighty

Four Essay, Research Paper

.The Time Machine. by H.G. Wells and .Nineteen Eighty Four. are two excellent science-fiction novels which explore and give to different views of the future. Both of the Novels look at the future in different ways because of different social attitudes and structures but both still have the same view of human nature and what it may lead to.

Written and based in the nineteenth century, .The Time Machine. explores the Fourth Dimension of space. The protagonist, who is referred to as .The Time Traveller. by the narrator, invents a machine that can transport him through time. The narrator, who is present at the .Time Traveller.s. dinners, retells the .Time Travellers story. of his adventure through time. Telling his wonderful story of travel through eras, we learn about .The Time Traveller.s. adventures in the year 802,701 and what has happened to the human race. At first this new world seems perfect and it is inhabited by a wonderfully peaceful and caring race that is assumed to be advanced humans, the Eloi, but as the book progresses a new sinister and ugly race emerges from underground, the Morlocks. .The Time Traveller. explains about how he had lost his time machine to the Morlocks and his great journey to try and retrieve his machine and return to modern day.

Nineteen Eighty Four was written in 1948 and takes place in a fictional totalitarian society of the future. The story begins in London on April 4, 1984. London is the capital of Oceania which is run by INGSOC. The government is called “The Party. and the main leader of it is called .Big Brother. who is always watching your every move. Winston Smith works for the government altering history at the Ministry of Truth. He begins to wonder why life is so bad and tries to break out of .Big Brother.s. tight regime. He falls in love with Julia, and is taken in by a man named O’Brien, who Winston thinks is a member of the anti-party society called the Brotherhood. Winston and Julia, with the help of O.Brien, find secluded locations where they can meet away from the praying eye of .Big Brother.. When O’Brien turns out to be a member of The Inner Party, Winston and Julia are captured and hauled off to the Ministry of Love. Here, Winston is imprisoned and rehabilitated by The Party in Room 101. O.Brien tries to break down Winston by convincing him he is crazy, he uses Winston.s worst fears against him to grind him down and make him betray his vow to Julia.

H.G. Wells was born in Bromley, Kent. His father was a shop keeper and a professional cricket player before he broke his leg. In his early childhood Wells developed a love for literature. His mother served from time to time as a housekeeper at the nearby estate of Uppark, and young Wells secretly studied books in the library. In 1883 Wells became a teacher/pupil at Midhurst Grammar School. He obtained scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London. However his interest faltered and in 1887 he left without a degree. He left and taught at private schools and began to write. Wells. debut book was .The Time Machine.; much of this story.s realistic atmosphere was created using his extensive knowledge of technical detail.

George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) was born in Bengal in 1903. He was educated in a south coast preparatory school and then at Eton. From 1922 to 1927 he served in the Indian Imperial Police but he soon became dissatisfied as this role offended his conscience and he left Burma to go to Paris. From 1929 he took a series of poorly paid jobs. About this time he became a professed socialist, and the rest of his life was largely spent in defending and propagating what he considered to be true democratic socialism against its perversions. In 1943 Orwell joined the staff of Tribune, contributing a regular page of political and literary comment. Many of Orwell.s book looked deeply at totalitarian regimes. His last book, .Nineteen Eighty-Four. was one of these books. It warned people of what may be to come in the future if politics were not to change. Orwell died in January 1950.

H.G. Wells clearly establishes his 19th century view of the future in the opening pages of his book. When The Time Traveller reaches the year 802,701 the description we get from him is that of a calm place with the most beautiful large structures:

.It was of white marble, in shape something like a winged sphinx..

The future that H.G. Wells sees for the earth and London is very different to the London of the 19th century although there are some similarities. In 1895 when .The Time Machine. was first published one of the main ways of measuring how technologically advanced a race or species were was to look at the physical attributes they had such as buildings or structures as there were no electrical goods invented at the time. One of the first things mentioned in The Time Traveller.s description of the future is that of the sphinx.

In the opening of .Nineteen Eighty-Four. it is clear that the 20th century view of the future is a more of a technologically advanced race:

.The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously..

Instantly the reader gets a sense that the future painted by George Orwell is that of a race that has advanced in electrical ways much similar to the way the world was going when he wrote .Nineteen Eighty-Four. and George Orwell has created new pieces of tec