The Time Traveler as "the other" in Wells' "The Time Machine"
Throughout the sci-fi genre, the concept of "the other" - the antipode, the twisted reflection of a self - often appeared in the guise of aliens or mutants. Initially though, this was not so, as in the days of yore, the sci-fi writers, not bound by the "canon" like their future literary descendants, had different views about who "the other" was. As an example, in H.G. Wells' sci-fi novel "The Time Machine", that "other" is not some strange monster like the "Alien" or the "Predator" of the latter age, but instead it is the story's main hero instead! Thus, the novel's readers are able to experience how they, being "the other", in the fiction at least, are beheld by beings that they consider as "others" instead and vice versa.
The hero's alienation from the others (and the word "alien" can mean both "a being from another planet" and "a foreigner - a person from another country" i.e. "a strange man in a strange country") actually begins to show even when he is still at his time and place - Victorian London. He is entertaining guests, explaining the principles of his time travel, but while they all have "labels" that show their place in society - the Mayor, the Editor, the Journalist, and so on, the hero's label - the Time Traveler - puts him outside this society/crowd. After all, sci-fi aside (and it is a quite realistic sci-fi novel) time traveling was not a regular feature of the Victorian London.
However, even at this stage of the novel, the Time Traveler is not quite considered the "one-of-us" kind of a guy. The Narrator points it out: "Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Traveler's words, we should have shown him far less skepticism. For we should have perceived his motives: a pork butcher could understand Filby. But the Time Traveler had more than a touch of whim among his elements, and we distrusted him." (Ch. 2, 37) In other words, the interlocutors of the Time Traveler do not consider him one of the crowd, he is somewhat marginalized, treated differently.
Then the Time Traveler leaves his society behind and goes to the future, to the world of Eloi and Morlocks. Now he takes the place of "the other" for sure - he does not fit with the delicate doll-like Eloi or with the savage Morlocks (not that he particularly try with the latter). In fact, when dealing with the Morlocks, he behaves rather like a monster himself, using brute force and a metal crowbar and burning matches, to overpower and possibly destroy them. He has a good reason: undoubtedly, the Morlocks are not anything but savage and monstrous; however, the Time Traveler does not belong in this world. However, though he does not mince world in pointing out that the Morlocks can be considered cannibals, even as he goes to confront them for the last time and get his Time Machine back, he points out that "It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit could invent. It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and as that I give it to you." (Ch. 10, 82)
Now, the Time Traveler has been wrong before; in fact, he has made several false hypotheses about the time of Eloi and Morlocks, which he changed to adapt to the new facts that he learned. In other words, he is "a stranger in a strange land", forced to deal with the local customs to the best of his ability, and when it fails, when he just cannot blend in with the natives, he has to leave. He is the other, the outsider, the alien in this story, and like another alien outsider in a sci-fi story, the "Iron Man", his well-intended but incorrect assumptions result in nothing but chaos throughout the countryside. However, since we see the unfolding events through his point of view, we see him as the hero of the story, rather than the villain or anyone else.
But if with the Eloi and the Morlocks the Time Traveler was the superior being, bigger, stronger, and/or smarter than the races native to that time, in the next futures this is not so. "I looked about me to see if any traces of animal life remained. A certain indefinable apprehension still kept me in the saddle of the machine. But I saw nothing moving in earth or sky or sea." (Ch. 11, 85) "All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives--all that was over" (Ch. 11, 86) In this world there is no place for man. In fact, this is no world of man; the Time Traveler describes it as some sort of an alien planet, inhabited by living blobs with tentacles, and before that - by giant screaming butterflies and giant monstrous crabs. Naturally, the Time Traveler was too apprehensive to leave his time machine to go exploring! Once more, he is the alien, the outsider in the situation, but this time the odds are stacked too strongly against him, everything is too alien for him (and vice versa), and so he leaves and goes back to where he belongs.
Sadly, things do not work for him back in the Victorian London either, as the Time Traveler's audience doubts his story to the point when the Time Traveler begins to have doubts himself. Despite everything, he still is not quite accepted by his peers - "You don't believe it?" "Well--" "I thought not." (Ch. 12, 88) - and so he leaves once again, this time vanishing for good, leaving the Narrator wondering, whereto he has gone to the Stone Age or the dinosaurs or beyond, obviously unable to permanently settle down anywhere, always being "the other", an alien, an outsider.
Thus, despite the popular modern idea that "the alien/the other" is a bizarre creature from outer space, H.G. Wells proves quite clearly that this "alien/other" can be one of us as well. In fact, the absence of the Time Traveler's actual personal name points out that he can be anyone on the street, just one face in the crowd, just one of us.