In this course, students will read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. This is the first novel with a time machine actually featured and Wells coined the name that we all use today. As we read, we will discuss the novel in class while analyzing the story and making historical connections with relevant events of the author's time and how they connect to modern society.

"The first great novel to imagine time travel, H.G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895) follows its narrator on an incredible journey that eventually takes him to the Earth's last moments. When a Victorian scientist invents a machine that allows him to travel to the year AD 802,701, he encounters a highly evolved society of people called the Eloi, for whom suffering has apparently been replaced by refinement and harmony. First impressions are misleading, however, and his discovery of the Eloi's true relationship to the brutish Morlocks who lurk in the tunnels beneath them leads him to a horrifying insight into the fate of mankind and its roots in his own time". - Citation is provided below!

Week One, Day One:
Introductions and Welcome
Discussion of the Text
Introduction to Author and Setting
Introduction to Historical Context
Introduction to Literary Elements

Week One, Day Two: Chapters 1 - 4 
Suspension of Belief
The Science of Time Travel
Suspense and the Return of the Time Traveller
Initial Reactions and Suspicions of the Future

Week Two, Day One: Chapters 5 - 7
Creatures and Peoples of the Future
Expectations vs. Reality
Morlocks vs. Eloi

Week Two, Day Two: Chapters 8 - 12
Symbols and Themes of the Novel
Historical Connections and Messages
The Future of the Future
Climax, Falling Action, Resolution?

Citation:
     Wells, Herbert George. The Time Machine. First Vintage Classics Edition ed., New York, Vintage Books, 2017.