The World of 802,700

"It was of white marble, in shape something like a winged sphinx, but the wings, instead of being carried vertically at the sides, were spread so that it seemed to hover. The pedestal, it appeared to me, was of bronze, and was thick with verdigris." (Wells 25)

- This is the description that the Time Traveller gives of the large statue he sees upon exiting his Time Machine. The statue proves to be very significant to the story when the Time Machine is stolen by the Morlocks and stored below in the pedestal. Just as Oedipus must answer the riddle of the sphinx to pass, the Time Traveller must find a way to "defeat" the sphinx - that is to say, he must find a way to open the bronze pedestal and retrieve his means of escape.

"Already  I  saw  other  vast  shapes—huge  buildings  with  intricate parapets and tall columns, with a wooded hill-side dimly creeping in upon me through the lessening storm" (26)

“You who have  never  seen  the  like  can  scarcely  imagine  what  delicate  and  wonderful  flowers  countless  years of culture had created” (29)

“My general impression of the world I saw over their heads was a tangled waste of beautiful bushes and flowers, a long neglected and yet weedless garden” (30)

“I saw a number of tall spikes  of  strange  white  flowers,  measuring  a  foot  perhaps  across the spread of the waxen petals. They grew scattered, as if wild, among the variegated shrubs” (30)

“and  upon  these  were  heaps  of  fruits.  Some  I  recognized  as  a  kind  of  hypertrophied  raspberry  and  orange, but for the most part they were strange.” (31)

“Indeed,  I  found  afterwards  that  horses,  cattle,  sheep,  dogs,  had  followed  the  Ichthyosaurus  into  extinction” (32)

“I realized that there were no small  houses  to  be  seen.  Apparently  the  single  house,  and  possibly even the household, had vanished. Here and there among  the  greenery  were  palace-like  buildings,  but  the  house  and  the  cottage,  which  form  such  characteristic  features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. ‘"Communism,’ said I to myself.” (34)

The world that the Time Traveller discovers is essentially a Utopia. Having mastered nature, the people of this future time live in a world without weeds, insects, bacteria or fungi. Evidently, the only things that grow are of benefit to mankind. This world of leisure and abundance is critical to the theories that the Time Traveller establishes in the text - it is the foundation of the change in the Eloi.