The Time Machine

This chapter begins the narration of the Time Traveller to his guests. His narration comprises the bulk of the novel, and every paragraph from Chapter 3 to the novel’s last chapter is enclosed in quotation marks to indicate that he is speaking.

The Time Traveller prepares his machine in the morning before his fantastic journey. Once the machine is ready, the Time Traveller takes a deep breath and presses on the machine’s levers. Immediately overcome with “a nightmare sensation of falling” (20), he presses the stop lever right away. To his astonishment, the clock has advanced five hours.

Bracing himself, he pushes the start lever full forward. Just then, his servant Mrs. Watchett enters the laboratory. He sees her moving around at great speed, and then she vanishes. Like the flapping of a wing, the days and nights alternate. He feels confusion and an unpleasant sense of “headlong motion.” Before long, the machine seems to be sitting in the open air, no lab in sight.

The machine picks up speed, and days and nights meld into a blur. The seasons pass; trees grow, then wither and die; buildings go up, stand awhile, and disappear.