H.G. Wells uses a frame narrative in The Time Machine just as Mary Shelley does in Frankenstein. This has several effects on the reader. Unlike an omniscient, third-person narrative, we can, at times, assume a bias of sorts in the way the story is told. One might assume that the light in which certain characters is portrayed is unique to the personal preferences of the secondary narrator. Another point behind this is that the tone is set by the secondary narrator as opposed to an omniscient figure or the actual teller of the story. The story is told with a serious overtone … not as gothic as Frankenstein, though. We as readers are led to ask, then, whether this is an accurate depiction of what happened, or a literary version of the telephone game.
It also provides a somewhat personal touch, though, to the story. It makes the telling of the story seem somewhat more sentimental and meaningful when we assume the story is being told again, perhaps to us. As the stage is set, we appear to be, in the case of Frankenstein, the recipient of Walton’s letter. In The Time Machine, we are free to assume that we are sitting in front of the very same fireplace where the story of the Time Traveler is told by the man himself. In some lights, this makes the story easier to read and can even open up the story to give the reader completely different pretentions as to how the story should be read and interpreted.
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The narrator even comments as the Time Traveler begins his story that the story is coming to us second hand and that not everything could be as accurately described as the Time Traveler tells it.
I completely agree. When you hear the story from someone other than the person it happened to the details of the people and event get changed somehow. There is no way that one person could possibly remember all of them correctly. Another factor is what the narrator thinks of that person.
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