timemachine

WEEK 1 A-Julian Sfeir On your group's wiki page, describe the main characters in your text. What makes them interesting? What is their story or background? Why are you drawn to them? Conversely, are there any characters that you just cannot stand? Why not? (A) In the first two chapters, there are two main groups of characters, the Time Traveller and the critics (all of the critics have the same description). The Time Traveller could described as an enigma because he has a very odd way of explaining his logic. His explanations of his logic are complex, so his critics (who have different educational backgrounds) are puzzled as to why the Time Machine works. Even though his way of explaining his logic is hard to comprehend, I was very interested in the concepts that the Time Traveller used. I don't really dislike any of the characters because there wouldn't be much of a story without the two character groups.

B-Adam Kaplan Person B should share and discuss their selected quotations, using Save The Last Word techniques. //There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.//

`Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.

There was a minute's pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth his finger towards the lever. `No,' he said suddenly. `Lend me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage.

`You've just come? It's rather odd. He's unavoidably detained. He asks me in this note to lead off with dinner at seven if he's not back. Says he'll explain when he comes.'

He was in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared with green down the sleeves; his hair disordered, and as it seemed to me greyer--either with dust and dirt or because its colour had actually faded. His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it--a cut half healed; his expression was haggard and drawn, as by intense suffering. For a moment he hesitated in the doorway, as if he had been dazzled by the light. Then he came into the room. He walked with just such a limp as I have seen in footsore tramps. We stared at him in silence, expecting him to speak.

`I can't argue to-night. I don't mind telling you the story, but I can't argue. I will,' he went on, `tell you the story of what has happened to me, if you like, but you must refrain from interruptions. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It's true--every word of it, all the same. I was in my laboratory at four o'clock, and since then...I've lived eight days...such days as no human being ever lived before! I'm nearly worn out, but I shan't sleep till I've told this thing over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions! Is it agreed?'

C-Collaborative Effort Person C should share his/her questions with the group, as well as post the questions on the group's wiki page -Do people have a tendency to not believe something they don't understand? -At what point does science go too far? -Should certain inventions never be used? -Do science and religion go hand-in-hand or are they completely different? -Every few decades, technology evolves to a point where it achieves the impossibles of previous years. Will time machines be possible in the next few decades?

D-Greg Chin The story starts off with the narrator of the story in a room with the Time Traveller. The Time Traveller is lecturing the people in the room about the 4 dimensions. The three dimensions that we use to perceive this world are length, width and depth. However, the Time Traveller argues that there is actually a fourth dimension; this dimension is time. He claims that there is actually a fourth dimension, because like all the other three dimensions, one can move in time. He says time is linear and we are all constantly moving forward in it. Then he makes a surprising statement proposing you can move faster, slower and even backwards or forwards in time. To exemplify this statement, he shows them a miniature time machine. This time machine has two levers; one lever will send it into the future and the second will send it into the past. A guest then pulls one of the levers and it immediately disappears into thin air. The Time Traveller says that the contraption is traveling into the future and they cannot see it because it is traveling faster into the future than they are. Then he finally shows them the actual time machine, which he plans to use to travel in. Most of the guests admit that the TIme Traveller is a smart man, however, his claims are preposterous. There is no way a man can travel through time in a machine! Next week at dinner, the guests are having dinner and then the Time Traveller comes in covered in dust. The Time Traveller goes to wash up and the narrator jokingly states that he has been traveling through time. When the Time traveller gets to the dinner table he gains the attention of all his guests and begins to tell his story......

WEEK 2 A-Adam Kaplan On your group's wiki page, describe the main characters in your text. What makes them interesting? What is their story or background? Why are you drawn to them? Conversely, are there any characters that you just cannot stand? Why not? (A) The main character in chapters three and four is the Time Traveller. He travels through time to the year 802,701 AD where people have evolved and life is primitive while being peaceful. The Time Traveller laughs at the future because he thought the future would be extremely advanced, atleast until he discovers an epitome: the lack of violence means that there is no use for family. This is interesting because we generally tend to presume that the future is highly advanced with flying cars, etc...

B-Collaborative Effort Person B should share and discuss their selected quotations, using Save The Last Word techniques. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past three!

Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green of spring.

You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children--asked me, in fact, if I had come from the sun in a thunderstorm!

I saw mankind housed in splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged in no toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither social nor economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that commerce which constitutes the body of our world, was gone.

What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers of the young. //Now//, where are these imminent dangers?

C-Greg Chin Person C should share his/her questions with the group, as well as post the questions on the group's wiki page -Are presumptions the flaws of society? -Do people believe the whole story or just what they want to hear? -Is it better to look at the best qualities of a person or the worst qualities of a person? -Does it help to be judgemental? -Should people explore things they do not fully understand?

D-Julian Sfeir The Time Traveller uses his machine to travel through time. It wasn't until he activates the machine that he realizes that if the place where he were to land was occupied by land, he would be destroyed. Scared of being destroyed, he stops the machine and lands in the future. To his surprise, the "people" he finds are simpleminded, to which he laughs at his overconfidence in the future. He begins to make presumptions such as: "there is no need for family when there is peace."

WEEK 3 A-Collaborative Effort On your group's wiki page, describe the main characters in your text. What makes them interesting? What is their story or background? Why are you drawn to them? Conversely, are there any characters that you just cannot stand? Why not? (A) The fifth chapter reveals a lot about the main character, the Time Traveler. Once he loses his time machine, the Time Traveller realizes that he must adapt to the current primitive society. The main character sticks to his first impressions and believes that the society of creatures he has blended in with are good. It is not until he begins to roam around during the night (the creatures do are afraid of the dark). When the Time Traveler begins to investigate the mysterious wells, he realizes that the primitive society have been controlling other another species and forcing them to work in factories.

B-Greg Chin Person B should share and discuss their selected quotations, using Save The Last Word techniques.

I turned smiling to them and beckoned them to me. They came, and then, pointing to the bronze pedestal, I tried to intimate my wish to open it. But at my first gesture towards this they behaved very oddly. I don't know how to convey their expression to you. Suppose you were to use a grossly improper gesture to a delicate-minded woman - it is how she would look.

Then I tried talk, and found that her name was Weena, which, though I don't know what it meant, somehow seemed appropriate enough. That was the beginning of a queer friendship which lasted a week, and ended - as I will tell you!

Darkness to her was the one thing dreadful. It was a singularly passionate emotion, and it set me thinking and observing. I discovered then, among other things, that these little people gathered into the great houses after dark, and slept in droves. To enter upon them without a light was to put them into a tumult of apprehension.

Why had the Morlocks taken my Time Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if the Eloi were masters, could they not restore the machine to me? And why were they so terribly afraid of the dark?

The place, by the by, was very stuffy and oppressive, and the faint halitus of freshly shed blood was in the air. Some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal, laid with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large animal could have survived to furnish the red joint I saw.

C-Julian Sfeir Person C should share his/her questions with the group, as well as post the questions on the group's wiki page -Why are first impressions so important? -Do the most powerful animals always rule? -Do certain situations need to be analyzed beyond a first glimpse? -After three weeks, was this book a good choice? -How can this chapter be related to the current situation in Libya?

D-Adam Kaplan

This chapter begins with the traveler trying to find his time machine. However, it had mysteriously disappeared. The traveler is searching for his machine by running around a sphinx in hopes of finding it. Then he starts questioning the natives in hopes that they know where it might have went. However, he ends up scaring them and they all run away from him. He then thinks about where it could have gone, assuming it had been moved or stolen. Since it was a big machine, these people were little, and he was only gone for a short amount of time, there was no way it could have been moved far. After narrowing down the possible places it could be hidden, the sphinx seems like the only possible place for it to have been hidden in. After going into the sphinx, he encounters a white ape-like animal that flees into the darkness. He returns to the over world and asks one of the natives that he saved from drowning in a river named Weena what these creatures were and she tells him that they are creatures that they live underground. He then notices some irregularities in this over world society since these creatures do not make their own clothes and items, thus someone must be doing the labor. He finds out that the creatures underground are the ones that are doing the labor in this future society. He relates this to his time in which there was class conflict between the upper and lower class; the lower class were always being exploited because of their need for money. Also, these underworld creatures were called “Morlocks”, while the over world creatures were called “Eloi”. The Morlocks were only allowed to come out during the night.

WEEK 4 A-Collaborative Effort On your group's wiki page, describe the main characters in your text. What makes them interesting? What is their story or background? Why are you drawn to them? Conversely, are there any characters that you just cannot stand? Why not? (A) A good quote to sum up the chapters is "curiosity almost kills the cat". The Time Traveler climbs down a well and enters the lair of the Morlocks out of curiosity. He is nearly captured and killed but narrowly escapes with his little companion. Together, they walk through the night and rest in a forest despite the chance of meeting a Morlock during the night. This makes the story more interesting because we first began to pity the Morlocks because they were forced to live underground in factories.

B-Adam Kaplan Person B should share and discuss their selected quotations, using Save The Last Word techniques. The Upperworld people might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away. The two species that had resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down towards, or had already arrived at, an altogether new relationship.

The Eloi, like the Carlovingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. They still possessed the earth on sufferance: since the Morlocks, subterranean for innumerable generations, had come at last to find the daylit surface intolerable.

And the Morlocks made their garments, I inferred, and maintained them in their habitual needs, perhaps through the survival of an old habit of service.

Then I thought of the Great Fear that was between the two species, and for the first time, with a sudden shiver, came the clear knowledge of what the meat I had seen might be. Yet it was too horrible!

`It was after that, I think, that we came to a little open court within the palace. It was turfed, and had three fruit-trees.

C-Julian Sfeir Person C should share his/her questions with the group, as well as post the questions on the group's wiki page Do people do things out of optimism or because fear? Can people who don't know better be held responsible for their actions? Is America considered a salad bowl or a melting pot? Was this book a bad decision? How will this book affect how we pick our next book?

D-Greg Chin

WEEK 5

A-Collaborative Once again, the main character is the Time Traveler. He narrowly escapes death from the Murdocks and ends up starting a huge wild fire. The Time Traveller barely makes it to his time machine, where he then travels into the future by thousands of years. The world is basically on the brink of extinction when he decides to travel back to the time in which the book started. To show proof that he traveled to the future, he snags some alien flowers and brings them home. The Time Traveller then traveled to the future once again, never to be seen.

B-Greg Chin Then I turned to where Weena lay beside my iron mace. I tried what I could to revive her, but she lay like one dead. I could not even satisfy myself whether or not she breathed.

The darkness seemed to grow luminous. Very dimly I began to see the Morlocks about me - three battered at my feet - and then I recognized, with incredulous surprise, that the others were running, in an incessant stream, as it seemed, from behind me, and away through the wood in front.

It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism.

Then I saw the thing was really a monstrous crab-like creature. Can you imagine a crab as large as yonder table, with its many legs moving slowly and uncertainly, its big claws swaying, its long antennae, like carters' whips, waving and feeling, and its stalked eyes gleaming at you on either side of its metallic front?

His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers upon the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw he was looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles.

C-Adam Kaplan Do you think the time traveler actually traveled through time or did he make it all up? Do you think the people or creatures from the future world were portrayed as the good and bad of today's society? Why do you think the time traveler left at the end of the book again? Do you think there was any significance to the flowers that the time traveler gave the narrator? Do you think it is or will be possible to travel through time?

D-Julian Sfeir