to take and defend a critical argument about H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. In the process, you will be asked to consider and respond to critical analyses of Wells’ text and use them in an effort to support your own claim about the text.
Texts:
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
Kathryn Hume, “Eat Or Be Eaten: H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine”
John Huntington, “The Time Machine and Wells’s Social Trajectory”
Paul A. Cantor and Peter Hufnagel, “The Empire of the Future: Imperialism and Modernism in H.G. Wells”
Elaine Showalter, “Eat Or Be Eaten”
Colin Manlove, “H.G. Wells and the Machine in Victorian Fiction”
Yevgeny Zamatin, “Wells’s Urban Fairy Tales”
Roger Luckhurst, “The Scientific Romance and the Evolutionary Paradigm”
Bernard Bergonzi, “Wells The Myth Maker”
Writing Task:
In an essay of 5-6 pages (1250 or so words), state and defend a thesis about Wells’ novel that is informed by the critical texts above (and class discussion about the text). You can consider such issues as race, class, size, imperialism, consumption, fear, gender, science/ discovery, evolution/ devolution, degeneration, politics, and/or satire. In the process of your argument, you must consider at least two of the critical essays from the list above. You can use more than two as long as at least two are given extended discussion and analysis.
Required Elements:
1. You must have an original thesis, though you can use your thesis to defend and support the argument of one of the critical essays that you find particularly convincing.
2. Remember that at least two critical essays (The choices are above) must be discussed extensively in the course of your paper.
3. When you use quotes and paraphrases from the novel and essays, be sure to cite them using correct MLA format and to analyze them carefully.
4. You need a Works Cited page at the end of the essay in which all sources are listed in correct MLA format.
5. Be sure to proofread as spelling and grammar do count.
6. As always, feel free to make an appointment for help in office hours!
The Thesis should be: “Well’s fin-de-siecle London scientist, brings uncannily into focus the mingled elements of class conflict, sexual hostility, cannibalistic transgression, racial fantasy, gender confusion, and apocalyptic angst…”
Elaine Showalter, “The apocalyptic fables of H.G. Wells.” P.214 (HG WELLS, TIME MACHINE)