War of the Worlds - Third Response

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."

After some time, the curate is captured after a fit of loud speeches (during which the narrator tries to protect them both but only succeeds in saving himself) and the narrator is stuck within the house for days, terrified the Martians will return to search for him. He stays in a coal-room for two days straight, buried halfway under coal and firewood. When he finally ventures out into the house, he starts to give up.

 "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

War of the Worlds - Second Response

Second Response (Pages 55-133 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.

In my last response, I placed all of my social behavior findings under section two: Imagery. However, I found it more appropriate to put it here, under the theme, considering social behavior in this story is a large portion of the theme. I have also revised my idea of the story's theme, separating each part of it into single words/phrases: Dystopia, invasion type war, and mass hysteria. Now I'll discuss these with evidence for each.

1) Dystopia

It's very obvious this story is a dystopia, but what makes it unique is that it involves alien invasion. Normally, when you think of a dystopia you think of past wars in history, like the Vietnam War, any of the World Wars, and the U.S. Civil War. Or maybe you think of books, like 1984. Personally, I tend to think of movies like The Day After Tomorrow, I Am Legend, War of the Worlds, V for Vendetta, Total Recall, Akira, Battle Royale, Twelve Monkeys, Minority Report, Idiocracy, The Matrix and so forth. The key connection between these movies is their futuristic settings. Dystopias, then, tend to be set in the future and focus on the fall and fail of mankind. War of the Worlds (book) has each of these qualities.

"Never before had I seen houses burning without the accompaniment of an obstructive crowd."

And connected with every dystopia is usually: mass hysteria.

2) Mass Hysteria

There is plenty of hysteria in War of the Worlds. But preceding every act of hysteria is usually a sense of confusion or ignorance. In society, we are comforted by many false securities around us, when at any time something disastrous could occur. That's not to say that we should always be on edge for danger, but I suppose society should better understand the ever-present dangers we face every day. For some, this is an impossible task.

 "Maybe there was a murmur in the village streets, a novel and dominant topic in the public-houses, and here and there a messenger, or even an eye-witness of the later occurrences, caused a whirl of excitement, a shouting, and a running to and fro; but for the most part the daily routine of working, eating, drinking, sleeping, went on as it had done for countless years--as though no planet Mars existed in the sky."

Especially in the London area, the people were unprepared and unbelieving of the Martian news. Most hadn't a clue of the true nature of things. However, a lack of efficient communication during this time limited the awareness throughout the country.

When the news reached London, it was vague and didn't seem too threatening. The Londeners were described by Wells as being so secure in their world "that they could read without any personal tremors".

"No one in London knew positively of the nature of the armoured Martians..."

"There was a lot of shouting, and one man was even jesting. The idea people seemed to have here was that the Martians were simply formidable human beings, who might attack and sack the town, to be certainly destroyed in the end."

"London, which had gone to bed on Sunday night oblivious and inert, was awakened in the small hours of Monday morning to a vivid sense of danger."

Let's reflect, for a moment, on the people who did understand what was happening, such as the soldiers, eye-witnesses, and Wells himself. Would it not be a trying conflict to inform the public? Surely no one would believe you if you warned of an alien invasion.

"The soldiers were having the greatest difficulty in making [the Londeners] realise the gravity of [the Martians'] position."

Wells specifically addresses a stubborn old man refusing to listen to a warning soldier:

 "'Do you know what's over there?' I said, pointing at the pine-tops that hid the Martians. 'Death!' I shouted. 'Death is coming! Death!' and leaving him to digest that if he could, I hurried on..."

When the message was finally clear to the people, I noticed another pattern emerging: cockiness in authority. While the Martians seemed hard to defeat, governmental and military authorities were too confident in their annihilation.This was hurriedly leading to the destruction of these authorities.

"And meanwhile the military and naval authorities, now fully alive to the tremendous power of their antagonists, worked with furious energy."

"Any further cylinders that fell, it was hoped, could be destroyed at once by high explosives, which were being rapidly destroyed and distributed."

"...but the public was exhorted to avoid and discourage panic."

"The public would be fairly warned of the approach of danger..."

"And so, with reiterated assurances of the safety of London and the ability of the authorities to cope with the difficulty, this quasi-proclamation closed."

"...the police organisation, and by mid-day even the railway organisations, were losing coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in that swift liquefaction of the social body."

Have you ever heard someone talking about a past horrific event in their life, saying something along these lines: "I just never thought that kind of thing would ever happen to me."? It's true, and when you think of your personal life, you don't expect certain dangers and disasters to happen to you, either. In the face of these dangers actually occurring, most people feel helpless and panicked. Wouldn't you?

Wars, invasions, poverty, death, and destruction are definitely far from anything you can fathom unless you've been through them. While we feel safe in our lives, let's take a moment to think about those who are going through these terrors and give them the benefit of the doubt for being unprepared and unexpectant.

In War of the Worlds, Wells does a phenomenal job of revealing true human nature under disastrous circumstances. He shows true faces under the facades of humanity. In fact, though the story is fictional, I am appalled at the genuineness of the situations he describes. How does one come to understand human nature so intimately?

Wells describes a city in close proximity to the Martians:

"...the whole place was in such confusion as I had never seen in any town before. Carts, carriages everywhere, the most astonishing miscellany of conveyances and horseflesh."

Later, when Wells is with a mass of people attempting to cross the river and the Martians appear:

"At the sight of these strange, swift, and terrible creatures, the crowd near the water's edge seemed to me to be for a moment horror-struck. There was no screaming or shouting, but a silence."

I particularly like what Wells says here to his nervous, frightened companion, the Curate:

"'Be a man!' said I. 'You are scared out of your wits! What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God has exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent!'"

In describing fugitives escaped to an unharmed town:

"...The faces of these people were haggard, and their entire appearance contrasted conspicuously with the Sabbath-best appearance of the [towns]people..."

When the narrator's brother reaches outer London:

"So much as they could see of the road Londonward between houses to the right was a tumultuous steam of dirty, hurrying people, pent in between the villas on either side; the black heads, the crowded forms, grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner, hurried past, and merged their individuality again in a receding multitude that was swallowed up at last in a cloud of dust."

"...it was a stampede--a stampede giant and terrible--without order and without a goal, six million people, unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilisation, of the massacre of mankind."

Human nature is different with each person, but there are many underlying patterns and similarities. When faced with extreme disaster, most people would likely freeze up or panic. Why wouldn't they? Unless you were a trained professional, how you could stop these sorts of feelings from occurring? Then again, human nature is full of surprises. Suddenly, in the face of death and grave defeat, people will rise up with new strength and courage to protect themselves and others. Such people are most likely what keep our species alive.

Sadly, the spectrum of human nature also has a negative side--the side of greed and self-importance. I noticed a pattern beginning in the story, as the situation grew graver and fear spread further: man began turning on fellow man, even in the face of mass extinction, for the sake of his sole need to survive. 

"The man was running away with the rest, and selling his papers for a shilling each as he ran--a grotesque mingling of profit and panic."

"...the engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods yard there ploughed through shrieking people..."

The narrator's brother witnesses a wagon being hijacked by a group of men in the midst of a chaotic abandonment of the nearby town:
"...[he] saw a couple of men struggling to drag them out of the little pony-chaise..."

The scenes witnessed of a massive crowd (by the narrator's brother) were very disturbing:

"A brewer's day (a wagon?) rumbled by with its two near wheels splashed with fresh blood."

In the same crowd, a frantic, greedy man goes after the money he drops:

"...he flung himself, with both hands open, upon the heap of coins, and began thrusting handfuls in his pocket. A horse rode close upon him, and in another moment, half-rising, he had been borne down under the horse's hoofs."

"Before [the narrator's brother] could get to [the man], he heard a scream under the wheels, and saw through the dust the rim passing over the poor wretch's back."

"The man was writhing in the dust among his scattered money, unable to rise, for the wheel had broken his back, and his lower limbs lay limp and dead."

"...my brother lugged him sideways. But he still clutched after his money, and regarded my brother fiercely, hammering at his arm with a handful of gold."

Eventually the man bites the narrator's brother to get him to release him, and the man is swept into the crowd, probably dead within minutes.

When the narrator comes to the river, this is what he witnesses:

"Steamboats and shipping of all sorts lay there, tempted by the enormous sums of money offered by fugitives, and it is said that many who swam out to these vessels were thrust off with boat-hooks and drowned."

Unfortunately for humankind, the Martians are capable of much more than they appear, and much more destruction and heartache is destined for the race of man...

"They do not seem to have aimed at extermination so much as at complete demoralisation and the destruction of any opposition. They exploded any stores of powder they came upon, cut every telegraph, and wrecked the railways here and there. They were hamstringing mankind."

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.

At many points in the story, Wells uses very vivid and engaging writing to describe the horrors and wonders occurring all around the narrator. Imagery, as I mentioned in my former response, are the key to stories like science-fiction in which certain qualities we cannot interpret any other way than by descriptive words. How can you describe colors to a blind man?

Wells does an incredible job of helping the reader picture the destruction occurring throughout the story. I chose these quotes for their quality and vividness in the imagination. Not only do they clearly portray an image in my mind, but the described sounds which accompany these images make it feel all the more realistic.

The narrator witnesses a downed Martian machine, fallen into the river:

"Thick clouds of steam were pouring off the wreckage, and through the tumultuously whirling wisps I could see, intermittently and vaguely, the gigantic limbs churning the water and flinging a splash and spray of mud and froth into the air. The tentacles swayed and struck like living arms... Enormous qualities of a ruddy-brown fluid were spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine."

Also in the river, the narrator is panicked by the disaster happening around him and the nearby shore:

"The air was full of sound, a deafening and confusing conflict of noises--the clangorous din of the Martians, the crash of falling houses, the thud of trees, fences, sheds flashing into flame, and the crackling and roaring of fire."

The narrator's brother wakes up to a terrifying new world:

"He went to bed a little after midnight, and was awakened from lurid dreams in the small hours of Monday by the sound of door-knockers, feet running in the street, distant drumming, and a clamour of bells. Red reflections danced on the ceiling. For a moment he lay astonished, wondering whether day had come or the world gone mad."

The black, killing-smoke detonated by the Martians is also described in great detail throughout the story:

"...the swiftly spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, towering heavenward"

"...a strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims..."

"And then night and extinction--nothing but a silent mass of impenetrable vapour hiding its dead."

During a massive evacuation, Wells intricately describes the crowd rushing past:

"There were sad, haggard women tramping by, well dressed, with children that cried and stumbled, their dainty clothes smothered in dust, their weary faces smeared with tears. With many of these came men, sometimes helpful, sometimes lowering and savage. Fighting side by side with them pushed some weary street outcast in faded black rags, wide-eyed, loud-voiced, and foul-mouthed. There were sturdy workmen thrusting their way along, wretched, unkempt men, clothed like clerks or shop-men, struggling spasmodically..."

Throughout the story, Wells makes many interpretative comparisons that I found important for a better understanding of the story. Many of these simple yet shocking similes and metaphors compared two different things that are in fact quite similar. I found them to be quite important to the quality of the story and the engagement of the reader. Wells especially compares the machines to human beings, informing the reader of their life-like quality.

"[The Martians]...are just in the beginning of the evolution that the Martians have worked out. They have become practically mere brains, wearing different bodies according to their needs just as men wear suits of clothes and take a bicycle in a hurry or an umbrella in the wet."

"But the Martian took no more notice for the moment of the people running this way and that than a man would of the confusion of ants in a nest against which his foot has kicked."

"Through the reek I could see the people who had been with me in the river scrambling out of the water through the reeds, like little frogs hurrying through grass from the advance of a man..."

"...[the Martian was] advancing with a leisurely parody of a human stride."

After the narrator describes how the Martians eat (this will be explained in the next section):

"The bare idea of this is no doubt repulsive to us, but at the same time I think that we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit."

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'd like to continue my connections from the last response, considering that many more similar ones are made throughout the story so far.
I chose to connect War of the Worlds to its counterpart film, The War of the Worlds (2005).

Although I have only seen snippets of the older film, I feel that it lacks the sturdy connections to the book. The aliens, for one thing, are much different and use different powers to overthrow their victims. However, given that the older film was made in 1953, a full-sized tri-pod machine would have been quite difficult to produce and film.

Here are the connections I found most similar between the book and the 2005 film:

In the movie, there is a scene in the city where Ray (Tom Cruise) and his children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) approach the harbor where a massive crowd is struggling to gain access to the ferry. It is obvious there isn't enough room for as many people as the crowd holds, but a hysteria has been spread by the approach of the tri-pods. Ray manages to get aboard the boat with his children, though there had been a barricade of army soldiers. In the book, a similar situation occurs:

"Here we found an excited and noisy crowd of fugitives. As yet the flight had not grown to a panic, but there were already far more people than all the boats going to and fro could enable to cross."

"At that the Pool became a scene of mad confusion, fighting, and collision, and for some time a multitude of boats and barges jammed in the northern arc of the Tower Bridge, and the sailors and lighterman had to fight savagely against the people who swarmed upon them from the river front. People were actually clambering down the piers of the bridge from above."

In another scene, young Rachel (Dakota Fanning) runs off from her family to use the bathroom in the woods. She keeps going further and further in, rashly convinced she's not hidden enough. Soon she comes upon a small river, and after a moment, a mass of dead bodies come floating down the current. This scene, which I had previously regarded as irrelevant for the movie's plot, also occurred, with some slight differences, in the book, when the narrator is crossing a bridge:

"...but I noticed floating down the stream a number of red masses, some many feet across. I did not know what these were--there was no time for scrutiny--and I put a more horrible interpretation on them than they deserved."

At one point in the movie, just after the ferry is knocked into the water and Ray and his family are floating helplessly along, a tri-pod is first witnessed gathering humans--plucking them from the water and storing them in a circular basket underneath the hood of its head. A similar scene occurs in the book, only on land:

"He used no Heat-Ray to destroy them, but picked them up one by one. Apparently he tossed them into the great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a workman's basket hangs over his shoulder."

When Ray and his family stay in a house for the night, they wake up in the middle of the night to a terrible noise and crash just beside the house. All members of the family are nearly destroyed by the chaos, but manage to escape the destruction. They find out, after escaping the house, that a plane attacked by tri-pods had crash-landed just beside the house. In the book, one of the Martian-holding cylinders falls just beside the abandoned house the narrator and his friend the Curate are taking cover in:

"And then followed such a concussion as I have never heard before or since. So close on the heels of this as to seem instantaneous came a thud behind me, a clash of glass, a crash and rattle of falling masonry all about us, and the plaster of the ceiling came down upon us, smashing into a multitude of fragments upon our heads."

In the movie, there was no suggestion of the Martians' eating habits, but people were 'sacrificed' for their fresh blood. In one scene, conveniently half-hidden by a vehicle, a tri-pod lays a captured human to the ground and stabs him with a sharp tentacle, producing a spray of blood. I can't remember entirely what the purpose of this was, but it matched the book to some degree:

"...they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures, and injected it into their own veins. ...blood obtained from a still living animals, in most cases from a human being, was run directly by means of a little pipette into the recipient canal..."

One of the main visual symbols in the movie was the red weed that grew rapidly over any surface on Earth. It was apparently brought by the Martians, but why and what it did were unknown. In the book it is explained further:

"I may allude here to the curious suggestions of the red weed. Apparently the vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green for a dominant colour, is of a vivid blood-red tint."

War of the Worlds - First Response

First Response (Pages 1-55 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.

Science fiction is renowned for having odd and intriguing themes. Most science fiction novels contain one or more of the following themes: Futuristic settings, life in space, the universe, alien lifeforms, and/or advanced scientific technology.
In War of the Worlds, several of these themes are present: Scrutiny of the universe, the existence of alien lifeforms, and advanced scientific technology. I will sum up the theme of War of the Worlds into a simple sentence: "The human race should not doubt the existence of lifeforms in space." Or simply: "We are not alone." Or even simpler: "Believe" (like in the X-files).

The introduction to the story is a perfect example of the story's theme:

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same.

No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable."

"Yet so vain is man and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed [on Mars] there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level."

Another theme slightly less apparent in the story is one more commonly used in other genres: dystopia. Throughout the story, many aspects associated with dystopia begin to appear: poverty, homelessness, hunger, dehydration, war, and death. As the aliens begin their official attack, the town is brought to ruins and many are left dead.

"But that night the strangeness of things about me, and my physical wretchedness, prevented me [from leaving the town], for I was bruised, weary, wet to the skin, deafened, and blinded by the storm."

"My imagination was full of those striding metallic monsters, and of the dead body smashed against the fence."

"And this was the little world in which I had been living securely for years, this fiery chaos!"

"The fires had dwindled now. Where flames had been there were now streamers of smoke; but the countless ruins of shattered and gutted houses and blasted and blackened trees that the night had hidden stood out now gaunt and terrible in the pitiless light of dawn."

2) Imagery and Social Behavior (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.

In order to address the first standard, I will pinpoint imagery most crucial to the story. I will also note characteristics of the characters and narrator that I found most interesting.

Science fiction is generally full of imagery, especially to express the unknown, the bizarre, and the impossible. In this case, the most important imagery is that of the aliens and their machines. It was crucial for Wells to vividly describe these things because they did not exist clearly in our minds until we read this story.

Here, the character Ogilvy approaches an object fallen from the sky:

"The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir-tree is had shivered to fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards."

In describing the aliens from the cylinder:

"A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfulls out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.

Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively."

And finally, the machines, or tripods:

"A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine-trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it..."

"Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted our from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me."

The behavior demonstrated by the characters and the narrator was interesting to me. Their reactions to the crisis and the aliens were sometimes surprising. Most felt terror and fled, while some seemed not to notice a thing. At this point in time, people were close-minded and felt secure in their lives, doubting very much any form of extraterrestrial invasion. It was this reason that put so many into shock and terror. Despite the doubts, the narrator believes in alien existence, but his opinions and feelings change quickly, even in the 55 pages I've read so far. He goes from being curious of the aliens to very fearful of their extraordinary capabilities.

I will now elaborate on the narrator's personal thoughts and reactions. At first, he is curious and excited. He's always believed in life on Mars, and now Martians were on his planet, on his very land!

Here, he reflects on the Martian's intentions to take over the Earth. At this point in the story, he is reflecting on future knowledge rather than describing chronological events:

"And before we judge of [the Martians] too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its own inferior races."

Here are his feelings toward the Martians near the beginning of the story, after he has witnessed their heat-ray burning several people alive and causing major damage to the area surrounding the cylinder:

"I must confess the sight of all this armament, all this preparation [against the Martians], greatly excited me. My imagination became belligerent, and defeated the invaders in a dozen striking ways; something of my school-boy dreams of battle and heroism came back. It hardly seemed a fair fight to me at that time. They seemed very helpless in that pit of theirs."

After the narrator and his wife fled the town (Maybury), the narrator comes back to return the cart he'd borrowed:

"For my own part, I had been feverishly excited all day. Something very like the war-fever that occasionally runs through a civilised community had got into my blood, and in my heart I was not so very sorry that I had to return to Maybury that night. I was even afraid that that last fusillade I had heard might mean the extermination of our invaders from Mars. I can best express my state of mind by saying that I wanted to be in at the death."

The narrator reflects on his feelings of panic and terror once he returns to his home after nearly being crushed by the tripods:

"I have already said that my storms of emotion have a trick of exhausting themselves. After a time I discovered that I was cold and wet, and with little pools of water about me on the stair-carpet. I got up almost mechanically, went into the dining-room and drank some whiskey, and then I was moved to change my clothes."

Once safely at home, the narrator questions levels of intelligence and capability among different animals and humans. He compares his view of the tripods to an animal viewing a complex, man-made machine:

"I began to compare the [tripods] to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an iron-clad or a steam-engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal."

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.

H. G. Wells is easily called The Father of Science Fiction. He was one of the first authors to address the topic of alien invasion and war between man and extraterrestrials. Because of him, many spin-off stories, movies, television shows, and even radio broadcasts were created. For a long time since, the story has inspired millions to give their opinions on alien life. 'Parallel stories' were created, or stories with similar theme and plot but with different aspects. Here are some examples of actual remakes inspired by the story:

(The original War of the Worlds was written in 1898.)

1) War of the Worlds (1953 film)

2) Mercury Theatre on the Air radio show. Episode titled War of the Worlds (radio broadcast episode; 1938) *Click here to listen: War of the Worlds Broadcast*

2) War of the Worlds (2005 film)

One specific connection I'd like to mention is the visual aspect of the original story compared to the 2005 film. Though I saw the film first, I found the descriptions of the tripods in the book to match rather well with the imagery in the book. I'll re-post the description of the machines and show you pictures from the movie.

"A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine-trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it..."

"Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted our from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me."

Other descriptions mentioned a 'ghost of a light' moving about from the tops of the tri-pods and of the heat-ray being completely invisible. He also mentions how they move about:

"Can you imagine a milking-stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? ...But instead of a milking-stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand."

"...and the brazen head that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about."

The narrator also describes the sound the machines emitted:

"As it passed it set up an exultant deafening howl that drowned the thunder--'Aloo! aloo!'..."

Unfortunately, I could not find a good video of the tripods.

Unit Three Proposal

Okay, so just so I can clarify for myself, I'm going to be addressing these standards: Theme, Connections, and Composing.


Here's what I think would work best for me:

I'd love to read a novel and post four responses, each response dedicated to a section of the book (marked at regular intervals). In order to address the standards, I thought I could just include evidence of theme and connections.
For example, each of my responses will include what I thought about the story, the theme I see, and any connections to its time period/modern day that I find important.

Finally, at the end, I'll address the last standard of composition by writing my own "version" of the story. In other words, I will create a story with similar theme and connections as the novel.

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.

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.

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.