The Time Machine

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.'

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