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.