The Eloi Paradise Versus the Morlock Underworld: Imagery and Symbolism in The Time Machine Eric Seamans College

In The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the Time Traveler travels from the late 19th century to the future–802,701–to find both heavenly and hellish, both beautiful and sickening environments. The earth at that time is inhabited by the Eloi, above-ground, loving, dimwitted humanoids, and ridden with Morlocks, underground, flesh-eating nocturnals who show themselves only in the dark to feed. Wells uses religious symbolism through description and color, and skillful word choice to inflict positive emotions when describing the Eloi, and negative emotions when describing the Morlocks.

As the narration indicates, “The whole earth had become a garden” (38) by the year 802,701. The Time Traveler saw “beautiful bushes and flowers, a long-neglected yet weedless garden” (32) across the landscape of the earth. If a garden were to be “long-neglected,” it would inevitably grow weeds, unless divine intervention were to take place, as it did in the Garden of Eden. The Time Traveler refers to the planet as a garden on several occasions, relating it to the Biblical garden, giving readers a sense of positivity. When he met the Eloi, he concluded they were “on the intellectual level of [a] five-year-old [child]” (31). “A flow of disappointment” came...