CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND NOTES

CHAPTER 10

Summary

The Time Traveller reaches the lawn with the sphinx, the very first place he step foot into the future. He thinks about his first, false impressions of the world, and the actual world that he encountered. He muses on the terrible outcome of man’s progress. Tired from recent events, he takes a nap. Waking up, he approaches the sphinx and finds that the doors are opened. He enters, and approaches his time machine, which is inside. The doors shut, and the Morlocks approach him. He tries to light a match, which fails, and instead, fighting off the Morlocks, attaches the levers he had been carrying with him, and disappears into the past.

Notes

The Time Traveller supplies his last musings about the nature of the future, and his final conclusions. The last fight, he claims is more of a close call than his fight in the forest, and his flight from the fire, but he manages to fight them off and get away.

CHAPTER 11

Summary

The Time Traveller reminds his listeners of the sickness he feels while time traveling, and explains that it was exacerbated by his improper seating due to his quick getaway. He finds that he is actually traveling further into the future, having pulled the levers the wrong way in the confusion of his getaway. He describes the changing heavens, as the sun ceases to set and begins to grow red. He slowly stops the time machine, on a deserted beach, surrounded by reddish rocks. No waves disturb the sea, and the Time Traveller discovers that the air is much thinner in the future. After seeing a huge white butterfly and hearing its scream, the Time Traveller realizes that the reddish rocks are actually huge crab-like creatures. When the crabs begin to approach and one starts to attack him, the Time Traveller moves further into the future. He finds that bleakness pervades the landscape, which only increases in the future. He continues into the future, a thousand years more, curious as to the earth’s fate, where he observes the growing darkness of an eclipse beginning, and that there seems to be no life stirring except the most basic plant life. The air grows increasingly cold, and the Time Traveller becomes sick, barely making it onto the machine to leave the future.

Notes

The Time Traveller’s experiences demonstrate pessimism about the ultimate fate of the earth and sun, as the Time Traveller watches them both begin to die, but the end fits the evolutionary theory of the establishment of life and development of the earth.

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