SOURCE: Scafella, Frank. “The White Sphinx and The Time Machine.” Science Fiction Studies 8, no. 3 (November 1981): 255-65.

In the following essay, Scafella detects certain parallels between The Time Machine and the fable of Oedipus and the Sphinx.

The fable [of the Sphinx] is an elegant and a wise one, invented apparently in allusion to Science; especially in its application to practical life … Sphinx proposes to men a variety of hard questions and riddles which she received from the Muses … when they pass from the Muses to Sphinx, that is from contemplation to practice, … they begin to be painful and cruel; and unless they be solved and disposed of, they strangely torment and worry the mind, pulling it first this way and then that, and fairly tearing it to pieces.

—Francis Bacon, “Sphinx; or, Science” from The Wisdom of the Ancients

1. Soon after crash landing his Time Machine in the...