本論文首先將概略探討傳統「故事中的故事」敘事的經典作品《坎特伯雷故事》，以找出威爾斯的《時光機器》如何符合此傳統。再者，本文將討論班雅明對說故事的分析，他看出了在新聞業興盛的時代說故事已衰落，古代之說故事魅惑已大為減弱。接著最重要的是，本文運用拉岡的移情理論來解釋為何在《時光機器》中說故事主體與聽故事他者互相疏離。雖然班雅明認為人們應重建說故事傳統以利於主體際的溝通，從拉岡的觀點我們可發現，失敗的說故事也許正標示著成功的移情，而這有助於主體獲得存有的真相。

THIS paper will first discuss the conventional story-within-story narration by looking into its classical representation, Canterbury Tales, in order to see how H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine is in line with it. Secondly, this paper probes into Walter Benjamin’s analysis of storytelling, which discusses the decline of storytelling in the age of journalism and points out that the ancient lure of storytelling has tremendously been weakened. Thirdly, and most importantly, Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory of transference will be employed to explain why the subject of the storyteller is alienated from the listening others in The Time Machine. Although Benjamin suggests that storytelling be retrieved since it helps foster intersubjective communication, from a Lacanian standpoint one would find that the failure of storytelling may signify a successful transference, which helps the subject to attain the truth of his being.