The Time Machine Essay

1. Alex H
The Time Machine
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, a classic science fiction novel. H.G. Wells is the world
renowned author of War of the Worlds. The Time Machine would be considered a comedy book. For a
book to be a comedy it doesn’t exactly have to be funny. All that the comedy mode means is; the book
must start happy, have a minor conflict, then the conflict is discovered and resolved. Finally the book
ends in a happy normal world. This category best fits The Time Machine.
This book is a science fiction book, but it fits into the comedy mode. In comedy a lot of actions
happen in the dining room and the kitchen. Before the Time Traveler traveled into time, he was telling
his friends about the machine in the living room, an indication of comedy. This book confirmed that it
was a comedy when the Time Traveler spent the last half of the book telling his story in the kitchen.
Location was one of the key indicators of comedy, but this along with the plot really gave this book the
mode of comedy.
Plotline is one of the most important factors in a mode of literature. If the book doesn’t match
the plotline, there is no way it can be that mode. The comedy plotline starts out in normalcy, in this
book the time traveler working on his machine, then comes minor problem and then problem realized.
In this book the problem was that the Time Traveler didn’t know how to stop the Time Machine, but the
problem realized happened when he couldn’t find the Time Machine after he had stopped. The last
point on the plotline is returning back to normalcy. This point was met when the Time Traveler went
back to his time period and told his friends his story. This was further proof that the Time Machine by
H.G. Wells is a comedy book.
Finally, the last piece of information required to prove completely that the Time Machine is a
comedy book was the chain of events. In comedy the events have to match the plotline or it is the
wrong mode of literature. Starting off in normal life, the Time Traveler was just putting the finishing
touches on his Time Machine that he had been working on for three years, that fits the standard for
normal life. Then problem and problem realized. The Time Traveler was flying through space when he
had to stop. The explosion from stopping got the time machine lost. The Time Traveler thought nothing
of it, making this fit minor problem and problem realized perfectly. Finally comes conflict resolved and
back to normal life. In this case the Time Traveler finds the Time Machine and returns back to his
everyday life, this all matches the plotline perfectly.
In conclusion, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is an example of a comedy book. Although the
book isn’t exactly funny, it matches the plotline perfectly. It also has a lot of action in the kitchen and

2. Alex H
living room. These are all indicators of comedy. Although not funny, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is a
great example of the comedy mode of literature.