In The Time Machine, H.G. Wells uses pathos to create a sense of empathy and emotional connection between the reader and the novel's protagonist, the time traveller. Wells uses emotional appeals to convey the fear, shock, and awe that the traveller experiences in his sojourn through time. The author also employs pathos to express one of the novel's central themes—the danger of technological progress and its capacity to entrench social inequalities.
In the early chapters of the novel, pathos is used to convey the devastation the time traveller experiences upon realizing that his time machine has vanished. The traveller appeals directly to his listener's emotions, imploring them to imagine what it felt like to be in his position:
'But it was the lawn. For the white leprous face of the sphinx was towards it. Can you imagine what I felt as this conviction came home to me? But you cannot. The time machine was gone!
'At once, like a lash across the face, came the possibility of losing my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world. The bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I could feel it grip me at the throat and stop my breathing. In another moment I was in a passion of fear and running with great leaping strides down the slope.'
In this passage, the Traveller compares his sensation to a "lash across the face," using simile to create a compelling description of his experience of loss. He continues, depicting his emotion as a "physical sensation" that "gripped at [his] throat" and "stopped [his] breathing." These vivid images convey his internal experience to the reader, evoking feelings of fear, anxiety, and hopelessness as the reader is placed in the position of the Time Traveller. In response, the reader feels sympathy for the Traveller's suffering and is compelled to continue reading to discover how the Traveller emerges from his predicament.
This device is heightened by the use of the frame story, in which the Time Traveller tells his story in the first person and employs rhetorical questions and raw descriptions to engage his audience. He not only uses vivid and emotional imagery to convey his experience, he also employs rhetorical questions such as "Can you imagine what I felt as this conviction came home to me?" and "But then, where could it be?" to engage his listeners' attention and empathy—and, by proxy, to engage the reader's.
