Second Response (Pages 133-183 of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds)
I will be addressing the following standards: ELABLRL1, ELABLRL2, and ELABLRL3.
1) The Theme (ELABLRL2)
ELABLRL2 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of theme in a work of British and/or Commonwealth literature and provides evidence from the work to support understanding.
1) Social Behavior - Specific
The theme of the last half of War of the Worlds changes according to the succession of the plot, from dystopia to the aftermath of dystopia. During this transition, I got to see more specific examples of the changes in human nature to attempt to adapt to horrific and unbelievable circumstances, something I've been interesting since the start of finding dystopia stories and movies.
Specifically interesting to me was the period in which the narrator becomes trapped in a house with the curate, a man the narrator found during his flee from the Martians and who he cannot seem to get off his back.
After the cylinder fell beside the house, the two found themselves trapped among the remaining rubble and structure--unable to escape due to the constant monitoring of the pit (hold formed by the cylinder and excavated by the Martians) by several Martians and tripods.
Imagine being trapped beside the enemy yet just outside its gaze. Do you think you could survive a given length of time with limited food and water? How would you begin to feel over time? You would likely feel crazed, terrified, and maybe even give up altogether on the prospect of escape. The narrator fears escape is impossible when he begins to realize that the Martians will likely stay in the pit for several weeks. He hopes it will not be their permanent headquarters.
The curate, who was already slightly demented by the whole situation with the Martians, became steadily more insane and incurable. So now imagine being trapped as before, only with an insane man who will likely give up your secrecy at any given moment. How would you feel towards such a man? The narrator was angry, brought several times to violence against him, but he also felt pity for the man's insanity.
"...he was indeed beyond reason. He would neither desist from his attacks on the food nor from his noisy babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions to keep our imprisonment endurable he would not observe. Slowly I began to realise the complete overthrow of his intelligence, to perceive that my sole companion in this close and sickly darkness was a man insane."
"From certain vague memories I am inclined to think my own mind wandered at times. I had strange and hideous dreams whenever I slept. It sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that the weakness and insanity of the curate warned me, braced me, and kept me a sane man."
While the two are stuck in the house, they discover a hole in the wall allowing them to view the pit the cylinder fell in. It is in this way the narrator was able to make closer observations and discoveries regarding the Martians.
"Yet terrible as was the danger we incurred, the attraction of peeping was for both of us irresistible. And I recall now with a sort of wonder that, in spite of the infinite danger in which we were between starvation and a still more terrible death, we could yet struggle bitterly for that horrible privilege of sight. We would race across the kitchen in a grotesque way between eagerness and the dread of making a noise, and strike each other, and thrust and kick, within a few inches of exposure."
"I lost heart, and lay down on the scullery floor for a long time, having no spirit even to move. And after that I abandoned altogether the idea of escaping..."
Another specific example of a unique effect from the war is the character called 'the artilleryman' who the narrator meets during his travels. The artilleryman had a very opposite reaction to the war in regards to the usual reaction of terror, panic, and fleeing. He took action--perhaps deranged action--to fight against the machines and form a society underground, where humans could live safely from the Martians. At the time, the narrator (and me!) thought this man very wise and brave and his ideas intelligent, but we slowly began to see through his song and dance. What he proposed was impossible; how could he, alone, bring together every survivor of the war and organize them into an underground society? (I will be more specific with the artilleryman in the connections section, where I connect his character to someone from the 2005 film.) The narrator never outright calls this man insane, but he later describes him rather negatively.
However unrealistic the artilleryman, he did have some interesting and rather wise views of the Martian attack:
"'This isn't a war,' said the artilleryman. 'It never was a war, any more than there's war between men and ants.'"
"'Cities, nations, civilization, progress--it's all over. That game's up. We're beat.'"
The artilleryman starts talking about the relationships between the Martians and the sort of people who can't survive without luxury and aid. These points, though cruel, I found interesting and potentially true, though I could scarcely imagine them happening:
"'Well, the Martians will just be a godsend to [spoiled people]. Nice roomy cages, fattening food, careful breeding, no worry. After a week or so chasing about the fields and lands on empty stomachs, they'll come and be caught cheerful.'"
He also mentioned his society-to-be, in which the weak and petty were to be discarded:
"Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. It's a sort of disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race."
I would like to take some time to point out a major shift in the narrator's disposition and mind. After he leaves the hiding space he shared with the now dead curate, he becomes gradually depressed and hopeless. His emotions and thoughts reflect the epitome of a society under the aftermath of destruction and demoralization.
"For a time I believed that mankind had been swept out of existence, and that I stood there alone, the last man left alive."
"I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away."
"Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity--pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion."
2) Aftermath and Lessons Learned the Hard Way
The narrator walks for days by himself, looking over the destruction and the desolation of the land. He can scarcely believe how much had been destroyed, how many people wiped out of existence. The chapter of his wandering through London was simply called "Dead London".
When the narrator stumbles upon the dead Martians scattered over their headquarters, a silent resolution passes over him, mixed with joy, surprise, and relief--but taking over his mind is a sense of returned hope and deliverance from evil. After a time of recovery, he slips into a deep and meaningful reflection of the war and of man's new outlook on the world.
"The torment was over. Even that day the healing would begin. The survivors of the people scattered over the country--leaderless, lawless, foodless, like sheep without a shepherd--the thousands who had fled by sea, would begin to return..."
He spoke of the now motionless tripods:
"They glittered now, harmless tripod towers of shining metal, in the brightness of the rising sun."
Later in the story, he returns to his home in Woking, which is still mostly in tact. I found it eerie when he could discern the last thing he did in certain rooms. For instance, the carpet by the stairs was still wrinkled and darkened from when he came in, soaking wet, and sat upon the steps. In another scene he'd found his desk upstairs undisturbed, still containing the paper he'd been writing at the beginning of the book.
"[I] found lying on my writing-table still, with the selenite paper-weight upon it, the sheet of work I had left on the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder."
Now I will show you the quotes I particularly liked about the narrator's reflection of man after the invasion. I find his insight and suggestions powerful and accurate.
First, after the Martians have been swept away by germs humans are immune to, the narrator speaks of the Earth as man's rightful property:
"By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain."
Next he comments on man's newly found ideals and views, his letting go of false securities and childish naivety:
"...our views of the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding-place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon is suddenly out of space."
"The broadening of men's views that has resulted can scarcely be exaggerated. Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion that through all the deep of space no like existed beyond the petty surface of our minute sphere. Now we see further."
However doubtful the rest of mankind, the narrator is sure that another attack is probable:
"A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough attention is being given to this aspect of the matter."
"...I, for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure. In any case, we should be prepared."
2) Imagery and Characteristics (ELABLRL1)
ELABLRL1 The student demonstrates comprehension by identifying evidence (i.e., examples of diction, imagery, point of view, figurative language, symbolism, plot events, main ideas, and characteristics) in a variety of texts representative of different genres (i.e., poetry, prose [short story, novel, essay, editorial, biography], and drama) and using this evidence as the basis for interpretation.As before, I will point out a few parts of the story I found very heavy with imagery and detail. I won't have as much evidence as before, simply because most of the evidence I've used in my previous responses were things I could have put here too, so I will avoid being redundant. The story itself is a giant masterpiece of imagery, but some scenes stood out more to me than others.
When the narrator is confined to the house with the curate, he looks out of their peephole during the night and finds the Martians hard at work in the deep pit on the other side of the wall, their machines producing a greenish smoke. This scene was very eerie, with the descriptions, the intentions of the Martians (intelligent intents unknown), and the limited security of the narrator and the curate with but a wall between their imminent doom.
"The whole picture was a flickering scheme of green gleams and shifting rusty black shadows strangely trying to the eye."
I also liked a few more of the clever metaphors made by Wells. You could easily describe something bluntly or directly, but instead he writes in a more round-a-bout way which, hypocritically, allows the reader to better understand what he's saying and to easily relate.
"Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me."
"I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his burrow and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen busy navvies digging the foundations of a house."
3) Connections (ELABLRL3)
ELABLRL3 The student deepens understanding of literary works by relating them to their contemporary context or historical background, as well as to works from other time periods.I will, as I have in the last two responses, connect this story to the 2005 film, as I have found many connections between the two (more than I really expected, considering the vastness between times). I will also do my best to find pictures and/or video clips to back up the connections.
In the movie, there is a scene where Ray, Rachel, and Harlan (Tim Robbins) are concealed in a storm shelter to escape the tripods. During the first night there, a probe-like machine enters through a hole in the ground, examining the layout of the room, searching for humans. In the book, a similar scene occurs when the narrator and the curate are trapped inside the nearly ruined house. The difference is in the machine, which, in the book, was supposed to look like a stout little container with many metallic arms, apparently operated by a Martian inside. This quote in particular reminded me of the movie scene:
"I looked up and saw the lower surface of a handling-machine coming slowly across the hole. One of its gripping limbs curled amid the debris..."
In the movie, Harlan first protects Ray and his daughter, but soon he begins telling Ray of all his insane ideas. This is also done in the book, by the artilleryman to the narrator, but in the case of Harlan the insanity vibe was very dramatized. The artilleryman proved little threat the narrator, but Harlan threatened his guests' lives by suggesting he was going to take over a tripod (shield and all) with just his shotgun. He also suggested mankind would live underground and spent a long time digging toward the sewers. I pulled some quotes from the book that matched best with Harlan:
"[We hurried to the house] where he had made his lair. It was the coal-cellar of the place, and when I saw the work he had spent a week upon--it was a burrow scarcely ten yards long..."
"He talked to eloquently of the possibility of capturing a fighting-machine..."
"'The main drains are big enough and airy enough for any one. Then there's cellars, vaults, stores...'"
"I noted that now there was no question that he personally was to capture and fight the great machine."
"I resolved to leave this strange and undisciplined dreamer of great things to his drink and gluttony..."
(as you can see, he's a little deranged...)
In this scene the narrator is walking towards a hill that overlooks the town. Everything is covered in the strange red weeds and the scene is very eerie. A similar scene happened in the movie when Ray, after Rachel is kidnapped by a tripod, walks onto a hill and looks out over a sea of the red weed.
"I had not realised what had been happening to the world, had not anticipated this startling vision of unfamiliar things. I had expected to see Sheen in ruins--I found about me the landscape, weird and lurid, of another planet."
This scene was also used in the movie, but in a different way. In the book, the birds are landing on a motionless, dead tripod. In the movie, Ray sees the birds landing on a slightly broken tripod and realizes the shield is down. I'd found a good clip of this part, but lost it and could not find another.
"...as I drew nearer and the light grew, I saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about the hood."
Although I didn't find quite what I was looking for, I did find two clips from the movie that contain a lot of clips from the scenes I mentioned above.
Here is the clip for the sound the tripods make, evidence I lacked in my former response:
Tripod Calling
And here is a fan-made trailer for the movie which contains a few short scenes that I previously mentioned, including the scene where Ray looks over a red landscape of weeds and where the tripod probe is sent into the storm shelter:
(precaution: this video contains some language)
War of the Worlds Trailer
