The Time Machine and the Sound of Thunder are both science fiction stories Essay Example

the cooking only in more modern times have women started taking the leading role in films, books, TV. Programs but still in these modern time men are still considered the stronger of the human species.

H.G. Wells is considered one of the fathers of science fiction. Science fiction is still fiction but it uses possibly scientific theories to underline the story lines. Science fiction asks the question "what if?" and any thing can happen because of all the different types of new discoveries we are making all the time, this helps new and old science fiction writer with new ideas about what could happen if they wrote about this or that.

H.G. Well's Time Machine has inspired thousands of science fiction authors to write about time travel and how things could change, the most common thing that the authors change are things that are problems in their time and what it would be like to change it. Wells also thought that Science could change every thing and sort out all of the problems of modern man.

The Time Machine is written in first person like a journal or a diary and the Time Traveller travels into the future to see what "progress" mankind has made but finds out that mankind has split up to become two totally opposite creatures that the Time Traveller calls the Elio and Morlocks. The Morlocks have become a cannibal race and eats the other half of mankind called the Elio.

As the Time Traveller is finding out how life is in the time that he has moved into he starts having feelings for one of the Elio called Weena. When the Time Traveller returns

to his own time his friends do not believe what he is say even though he brought back a flower that non of them has seen before and could not explain what it was. In the end of the story the Time Traveller goes back to the future and never returns. Some of the characters thought that he might have gone back to see Weena but others thought that he might have gone into a 'nearer age' to where men are still men.

H. G. Well's story shows that Well's thought that if men kept becoming more and more advanced then he would soon become weak and lose his dominance, Wells demonstrates his ideas though the actions of the Elio.

The Sound of Thunder is written in Third person as though someone was there watching it all happen. The Sound of Thunder is set in the future so that the characters can go back into time. Again in this story all of the Characters are male. Eckels has paid the Company to travel back in time to go dinosaur hunting.

This anti-hero is terrified because the company doesn't guarantee his life.

When he actually goes with them he runs off at the last minute and steps on a butterfly making his time change and everything the knew before different. So the other time travellers that run the company kill Eckels when they return and find out how much damage he has done to the space-time continuum.

The Sound of Thunder shows us that Ray Bradbury thought that messing with time can affect our own time in ways we would not imagine, like the butterfly in his story, you would not

think that it would make such a big difference to the way things are in the world but Bradbury goes to show it does not matter how big or small the change you make is at the time you are in, it could change things in a very big way back in your own time.

The Characters in both of the books are very different even though they are both men.

H.G. Wells has written his character the Time Traveller in a mysterious way, thought the book he is given the name Time Traveller and never a real name, H.G. Wells goes out of his way to not describe the Time Traveller "Has Mr------ gone out this way?"(Page 117) Here one of the other characters is looking for the Time Traveller and does not say his name, Wells went out of his way not to say the name of the character but this is not the first time that Wells goes out of his way not to name the Time Traveller

"'Here's_____?' Said, naming our host" (page 14) here near the start of the book he is given no name. Throughout the story the Time Traveller has very little said about him and what he looks like. Unlike Ray Bradbury's story Wells has done it on purpose and it gives the story a slight twist.

The Time traveller is a well off gentlemen who's a scientist. This character reflects the time that the Time Machine was written and what types of professions were popular in H.G. Well's time. You can work out that the Time Traveller is middle class because of the way he lives, Wells tells the reader

that the Time Traveller lives in Richmond which is a very exclusive part of London, he also has a maid that serves all of his guest food and no where in the story does he have to go to a job.

Another thing that tells the reader that the Time Traveller is middle class is that all of his friends are given titles of high class or middle class jobs e.g. the Medical man, the Psychologist, the Doctor, the Editor. All of these men are in high social status and all of these jobs need men that all very bright. "..The Time Traveller was one of those men who are too cleaver to be believed: you never felt that you saw all around him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness." (Page 13) Wells is telling the reader that the Time Traveller is incredibly intelligent and too much before his time.

From the small amount of description that Wells gives the reader you can work out that the Time Traveller is not a very young man, as the Time Traveller says himself in page 43 "....I suppose I covered the whole distance.....two miles.... In ten minutes. And I am not a young man" This is on the discovery that the Time Machine has gone missing; he is running towards the white sphinx because this is where it has been taken. On the very first page of the story Wells gives you a small amount of description about the Time Traveller "...marking the points with a lean forefinger- as we sat and....admired his earnestness (truthful, honest)" character. From this small description

you find out that the Time Traveller has thin finger and this might be because he is thin so from this you can read into it and find out that the Time Traveller is "lean" as Wells describes.

Further into the story Wells gives the reader a description of what the Time Traveller is wearing the first time the rest of the characters see him after he has been doing his time travel. "He was in an amazing plight. Hi coat was dusty and dirty . . . . His chin has a brown cut on it-a cut half healed . . . . He walked with just such a limp as I had seen in footsore tramps. We stared at him in silence, expecting him to speak." (Page 15) You get given the impression that the Time Traveller has been through a lot and has been traumatized by his experience. He is in total shambles and hasn't had a wash in days, his guests are shocked by this and they are all wondering what has happened to their friend.

Wells writes that The Time Traveller is both afraid and in a panic, however, this passage shows that he is able to control it this shows the reader that Wells has give the Time Traveller good self control over his feelings towards a situation and he just carries on so that he can get the job done. This characteristic is shown again The Time Traveller has to go and explore the underworld of the Morlocks so that he can find his time machine and Wells writes "I began to feel over the parapet for the climbing hooks.

Rather hastily, I may as well confess, for I feared my courage might leak away!"

The way that Bradbury writes his characters is in a totally different style to they way that Wells has used. In The Sound of Thunder there is one main character like in the Time machine but this character is an anti- hero. Bradbury does not tell the reader much about Eckels as he is writing a short story. Like in the time Machine we find out that Eckels is very rich for his time period.

On the very first page you are given this information "...And in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars..." this is a lot of money even in this time let alone in 1954 when the story was written. In 1954 ten thousand dollars would have been the type of money only the higher class would have and then it would only to have been worked for. The average income at this time would have been around $750. The money that Eckels is paying is around $300 000 in today's money. This is one of the many things in the story that makes it believable because in 2002 we have had people paying millions of pounds and dollars so that they can be sent out to space.

Again on the first page you are given a lot of information about Eckels and his character all in the first page as where it took chapters to find out about the Time Traveller. "Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels'; throat; he swallowed and pushed it down" This is the first section of information that you get given about Eckels you

find out from this sentence that he is scared and is trying to keep his calm and not let any one know that he wants to leave. "' does this safari guarantee I come back alive?'" This is another small amount of information that you get given about Eckels before they go Time Travelling, this shows you again that Eckels is scared because he is asking for reassurance from the other characters.

All through out the story Bradbury keeps reminding the character that Eckels is very scared because this is a very important part to the story line. The man behind the desk says "'sign this release. Anything happens to you, we're not responsible'" Eckels response to this is "trying to scare me!" Again this is an example of Bradbury showing the reader that Eckels is scared about going on the expedition.

Eckels gets shouted out for messing around when he should not have been, this is another piece of useful information because a proper hunter would not want to mess around when out on a hunt as it might make an accident happen and scare off what they are trying to hunt. After this happens like a little child Eckels changes the subject trying to make Travis forget what just happened. Bradbury describes to the reader about the way Eckels is acting when the dinosaur gets close to them and the time for killing it is getting closer.

Eckels tries to get the people that are with him to take him home but they wont, they make him stay through the experience. But Eckels cannot take it and starts running away from the dinosaur but steps off

the path that they use so that they don't disturb the time zone they come too. Bradbury explain to the ready why they use this path, he says" say we accidentally kill one mouse here.

That means all the future families of this one mouse here. That means all of the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed" and to the reader this seems like nothing important but then Bradbury tell the reader through the characters again "well what about the foxes that'll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For what of ten foxes, a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into destruction" this shocks Eckels that something so silly could change so much, but he does not think about this when he steps off the path because he is too scared to stay with the rest of the time travellers.

Bradbury makes Eckels a coward so that the reader does not like him and then blames him for what happens in the end of the story, just because he become scared like all humans and ran off the path as not his fault, things that they had not expected had changed and become worse then before just because he stood on a butterfly when he went off the path.

The language that is used in both books is very different, Bradbury's text is modern English that is easy to read and follow with not a lot of description apart from when the dinosaur enters the picture. As where Wells uses old English that is now

extinct.

Wells vocabulary is much more complex then Bradbury's. He uses vocabulary that gives the story a more depth but does not make the story flow well as the reader has too look up words that are not used in modern day English. The way the Wells writes is in more depth then meets the eye, this is because of all the different way he approaches things in the real world, one of these depths are that if u read some of the words backwards they give u another word, this new word gives another meaning and insight to what he is trying to get across to the read. The main one in the Time Machine is Weena if you read this backwards it reads a neew, wells chose this name because he wants to let the reader know that this way of life it totally new to the way things are in his time and that things have changed.

Bradbury does not write in such depth, he just writes what he means without hidden depth. The main reason for this is because he is writing a short story and does not need to go into such detail with his settings and characters, if he did then his short story would become a lot longer. Bradbury even though he uses "simple" language he Still manages to get what he is trying to show the reader across. Because of the time that Bradbury wrote the Sound of Thunder the language seems to be more "modern" but still is quite out of date for the times that live in now but because we are comparing it to a much

older text that uses language that isn't used in normal day context.

Wells does not use the detail of his characters that much so that they have more mystery; he uses settings and atmosphere to help make mental imagery in the readers head. On page 78 the passage beginning "looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles................had been swept out of existence" Here is a good example of Wells use of description and vocabulary. He uses long words like "unfathomable" "precessional" though out this passage.

In my view both of the books are excellent and are written in exquisite language. They both use such different ways to show the same subject. They both make time travel seem so alive and magical. It makes the brain think about all the different possibilities that there are out there. I think that I prefer the Time Machine to the Sound of Thunder because of the description used in it, even though more complex it makes my mind wonder more about things then the Sound of Thunder does. The Sound of Thunder's language is too simple for me even if it is more "modern" it is too simple. The only improvement that I could think of the Tim Machine is that the Language was made more up to date but it would still keep its complexity and depths.