The Plot (Magill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
The story is told retrospectively by an unnamed narrator, an educated, philosophically trained man who witnessed many of the events he describes and reports them as recent history. The first signs of an invasion from Mars come when astronomers note a series of spectacular explosions on the planet. Experts, however, think they were caused by meteorites or volcanic eruptions; no one suspects any danger. Only later does it become known that climatic changes steadily had made Mars less hospitable for its inhabitants, and they were looking to Earth as their only refuge. The explosions were the firing of ten projectiles, each containing a small Martian invasion force, at Earth.
The first cylinder-shaped projectile lands southwest of London, on a summer night. By morning, it has attracted a crowd of curious onlookers. In the early evening, the cylinder opens to reveal a grotesque, octopus-like figure the size of a bear, its body glistening like wet leather. The crowd retreats in shock. By dusk, an official deputation arrives, waving a white flag. The authorities have decided that the Martians are intelligent creatures and wish to communicate with them. A devastating beam of heat shoots out from the invaders’ cylinder, destroying everything it touches. Forty people lie dead, and the narrator flees in terror.
This sets the pattern for the next few days. The Martians appear to be unstoppable. They construct huge tripod-shaped machines, higher than a...
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Places Discussed (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
*Horsell Common. Rough, wooded landscape in Woking, on the edge of one of London’s dormitory towns, where the first Martian cylinder comes down. It is a hint of wildness close to the heart of Victorian domesticity where the narrator and his fellows first have to come to terms with the nature of the invasion. The narrator, who writes about science, maintains a dispassionate voice, observing, reporting, and rarely judging, so the reader gets a clear record of how the Martians emerge from their cylinder, which is dug into a sandy pit. This pit is at first an amphitheater for the observers and later a trench within which the attackers prepare their weapons.
Fleeing the destruction, the narrator embarks on a zigzag odyssey through the suburbs southwest of London, an area which highlights the destructive threat of the Martians by being supposedly safest and most prosperous.
*Weybridge. Prosperous Surrey town on the River Thames where the narrator witnesses the first of the Martian war machines to be destroyed by a lucky artillery shot. This victory, however, is offset by the appearance of the curate, a weak and cowardly figure who is used to represent some of the worst aspects of human character.
*London. Great Britain’s capital city. The narrator’s own eyewitness account of the invasion cannot encompass the whole picture that Wells wants to...
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Fear of Invasion
At the end of the nineteenth century, the nations of Europe were divided into strategic alliances that pitted them against each other in the event of a war. From 1882 onward, these military associations resulted in a greater military buildup than the world had ever known before. The proof that this trend created a dangerous political situation can be seen in the fact that it ended in the largest and bloodiest confrontation that had ever happened up to that time, the Great War.
The roots of this division of Europe came in 1871, when Prussia conquered France. Prussia, the kingdom state that included Germany, sought to prevent France from coming back at some future time to take back the land that had been taken from it by forming alliances with first Austria-Hungary and, later, Russia. By the 1880s, Germany had signed on to a Triple Alliance with Italy and Austria-Hungary. Britain, France, and Russia, in turn, signed on to a Triple Entente, promising to defend each other in case of attack. By the time Wells wrote The War of the Worlds in the late 1890s, all of the nations of Europe were aligned with one of these organizations. The balance of military power was strictly monitored and maintained: for instance, the German naval build-up in the 1890s spurred Great Britain to pour resources into their own navy, which caused Italy, France, the United States, and Japan to follow suit. The political scene in which Wells wrote...
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The War of the Worlds is set in the late 1890s in England. For Wells and his original audience, this was a modern setting, and the British weapons he describes were the very latest products of high technology. Although the iron-clad warships and batteries of cannons may seem old-fashioned to present-day readers, one should keep in mind that these weapons were once symbols of terrible destruction. That the Martian war-machines crush the well-armed and mighty British army confirms the Martians as technologically superior enemies of humanity. After the British artillery batteries are destroyed, no one doubts the Martians' ability to exterminate humanity.
All the locales in The War of the Worlds are real places in Englandplaces where Wells lived or often visited. Readers familiar with England would have readily recognized the place names and the descriptions of the countryside. Thus Wells brings home the effects of the invasion on ordinary people.
It should also be noted that scientific theories of the 1890s suggested that Mars might be inhabited by intelligent beings. The "canals" of Mars, which today are regarded as merely optical illusions, were taken seriously at the time The War of the Worlds was written. Maps of the canals had been published, and some scientists openly speculated about how and why they might have been constructed.
Furthermore, a prominent scientific theory about the origins of the solar...
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In order to present this story as a first person narrative, told by an “I” speaker who is a character in the book, Wells has to resort to some clever tricks. For one thing, the narrator is a scientist and a friend of an astronomer, Ogilvy: this gives him access to the world of astronomy when most of the news about the first projectile from Mars is not commonly talked about. Another method used is to have the narrator speaking from six years after the action has taken place, so that information that would not have been available during the Martian invasion, such as the details of their physiognomy, can be introduced into the book at appropriate times.
The most obvious narrative device, though, is in switching the action’s point of view for several chapters into that of the narrator’s brother. This is not a character whom readers come to know with any depth. The details of his experience are known without much insight into his personality. The function of these chapters is to show what the general reaction to the invasion was around London, and perhaps to introduce a dashing, romantic figure aiding damsels in distress without breaking away from the reality of the narrator’s perspective.
Once readers reach the end of The War of the Worlds, many realize that they should have seen the Martians’ defeat clearly prepared in the course of the story. When an action in the story...
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In his autobiography, Wells declares that "I am journalist all the time and what I write goes now — and presently will die." He is mistaken about how long his work would live in the imaginations of readers, but his emphasis on topicality accounts in part for the success of his novels. When The War of the Worlds was written, Mars was the object of intense public interest. About twenty years before, astronomers had reported seeing "canals" on Mars. Canals implied canal-builders, which implied intelligent life. In addition, science had become the subject of much public debate, because the 1890s were in the middle of the period in which the natural sciences were becoming part of the everyday curriculum of schools. Journalists responded to the general interest in science and the particular interest in Mars with a multitude of speculations on what life on Mars would be like. Wells chose a topic for his novel that was calculated to catch the public's imagination. In addition, he placed the action of the novel right in the midst of the homes of the largest part of his audience — middle-class readers. His care in presenting accurate details both in setting and of the everyday lives of his audience gives his narrative a powerful immediacy, as though the action could be in any reader's own yard.
Wells also avers, "I write as I walk because I want to get somewhere and I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way...
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At the time Wells wrote The War of the Worlds, science had become the subject of much public debate. During this period, the natural sciences were becoming part of the everyday curriculum of schools. Journalists responded to the general interest in science—and the particular interest in Mars and its possible inhabitants—with a multitude of speculations. Wells chose a topic for his novel that was calculated to catch the public's imagination. In addition, his care in presenting accurate details, both in setting and about the everyday lives of his characters, gives the narrative a powerful immediacy, as though the action could be taking place in any reader's own yard.
An interesting technique is Wells's use of symbolic names. The Narrator could be an Everyman figure—a character who is meant to symbolize all human beings. More pointedly symbolic are the Curate and the Artilleryman. They are not given individual names of their own, but instead stand as representatives of their kind. The Curate, representing a religious point of view, cannot cope with the invasion of Earth by creatures who do not fit into his theology. The Artilleryman represents the bravado and impotence of the military in the face of immensely superior weaponry. Usually, an author will try to interest readers in individual characters; in The War of the Worlds the great mass of humanity is more important than the characters because of what Wells wants to say about...
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The War of the Worlds is primarily an entertainment, without the overt social commentary of The Time Machine (1895). Even so, it reflects some of Wells's social concerns. As Anthony West points out, the Martians "treat Europeans as Europeans had been treating native populations and animals in the hey-day of colonialism." Instead of being the conquerors, Europeans are the primitives. Confusion, fear, panic, and bravado are the typical reaction of the English to the invasion by a civilization with technology beyond human comprehension. The Martians themselves are "minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts."
In many respects, The War of the Worlds is a tale told before. For instance, the Aztecs of Mexico first took Hernando Cortes and his men to be benevolent gods when the Spaniards arrived early in the sixteenth century. The Aztecs were puzzled by the Spaniards' mighty horses, which they had never seen before; but when they realized that the men of Cortes were not "gods" but instead conquerors, they fought and were slaughtered by weapons vastly superior to their own. Wells's tale of the tragedy wrought by the colonialist impulse is thus lent force by historical precedent.
Wells stresses the idea that technological sophistication and moral development do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. The idea that ethics must keep pace with humanity's ability to transform the natural world if...
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Ideas for Group Discussions
The social commentary in The War of the Worlds is thick, but it continues to attract a multitude of readers, and the depiction of civilization collapsing in gallant resistance against an implacable enemy is grand, even moving. Science fiction writers ever since have used their fantasies as vehicles for commenting on society, but few fire the imagination the way Wells does. Discussion groups could approach the novel from the angle of its social commentary and work their way into the ideas at the foundation of the tale. Another angle for approach would be the apocalyptic vision of the book; it portrays our civilization collapsing into ruins, with good and bad equally destroyed. What makes this vision stirring?
1. How well is the climax of the novel developed? Do you think the highly evolved Martians would forget something like disease? Is the climax forced too much to fit Wells's social commentary (when something is gained, something is lost) at the expense of a coherent plot?
2. What are the parallels between the events in The War of the Worlds and the history of colonial empires? Don't stop with Western civilization's expansion; note the parallels in the history of Eastern empires, as well as the violent invasions of the Middle East and Europe by Huns, Mongols, and others. What generalizations about humanity is Wells making with his tale of conquest and utter defeat?
3. Some characters have names that represent their professions....
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Compare and Contrast
1898: One of the most frightening aspects of the Martian invasion is when they master the concept of flight, giving them the ability to spread their dominance across the globe.
Today: Humans have been able to fly since the Wright Brothers were able to attain lift-off at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.
1898: Wells presents interplanetary travel as being a matter of a canister projected from Mars to Earth like a bullet from a gun.
Today: Humanity understands the principles of rocket propulsion well enough to explore the far reaches of our solar system.
1898: In the novel, Wells describes lakes of water on Mars, visible through telescopes.
Today: For a long time, theories about Martian water have been discredited as a misinterpretation of the visible data; however, in recent years, probes on the surface of Mars have determined that there is in fact significant water.
1898: The only means of communication are telegraphs. When the Martians are a few miles away from London, people in the city go about their ordinary business, unaware.
Today: Wireless phones with video capabilities make it possible for an average citizen to send sound and images from any remote corner of the world.
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Topics for Discussion
1. Why are the characters given abstract names such as "the Narrator" and "the Curate"? Are the names symbolic? What would be the point of symbolic names?
2. In many stories about invaders from outer space, the aliens are so advanced that human beings can do nothing to hurt them. Wells allows his human beings to destroy some Martian war-machines. Why does he do this?
3. Is the ending of the book, in which the Martians are destroyed by microbes and chased down by packs of dogs, a let down? Can you think of a better ending?
4. If modern scientists were to spot flashes of incandescent gas on the surface of Mars, how do think they would react? How would the national government react? How would the military react? Would any of these groups react differently than they do in The War of the Worlds?
5. What if scientists knew for sure that space vehicles were on the way from Mars to Earthhow do you think people would react to the news?
6. The War of the Worlds was published in 1898, and the military technology of Britainthen the world's preeminent military powerseeold-fashionedned when compared to modern weapons. How does this affect your enjoyment of the novel? If you still enjoyed reading The War of the Worlds, what about the book makes it worth reading even though the technology is out of date?
7. After the Martians have crushed the resistance and gained control of the countryside,...
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Ideas for Reports and Papers
1. Throughout his career, Wells was concerned about the ethical uses of technology and scientific knowledge. How are his ideas reflected in The War of the Worlds? (A good place to begin your research is Isaac Asimov's "The Science Fiction Breakthrough" and Rosalynn D. Haynes's H. G. Wells, Discoverer of the Future. Wells's own Experiment in Autobiography provides insight into what he hoped to say in his novels about the ethical use of advanced technology.)
2. Compare The War of the Worlds to another famous outer-space invasion book, such as John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (1951). How are the books similar? How are they different? Does the second author seem to be responding to any particular aspect of Wells's novel?
3. What was the state of military preparedness in England in the late 1890s? Is Wells accurate in his depiction of the military of his time?
4. What were the most significant theories about life on Mars in the 1890s? Who first suggested that there were canals on Mars? Why did people think these canals were made by intelligent beings? Who were the most important scientists to speculate that there was intelligent life on Mars? How much does Wells borrow from the scientific speculation about Mars?
5. The War of the Worlds was written during a turbulent period of Wells's life. Why did he write the novel? How did he come to choose the subject? What was the critical...
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Topics for Further Study
This novel is specific about what sorts of physical characteristics the Martians would have developed, due to the kind of atmosphere Wells believed Mars to have. Using current information about Mars, describe what types of creatures would live there if there were any Martians at all.
Examine the information that has been printed by people who suspect that aliens have already come to Earth, especially the theories around Roswell, New Mexico, and the government facility at Area 51 in Nevada. After reading the information, explain why you do or do not believe that the government is keeping the presence of aliens a secret.
Listen to a recording of the Mercury Theatre’s 1938 broadcast of their adaptation of The War of the Worlds, and then read about the panic that broadcast caused. Compare the public’s response to that fictional account with the reaction to the real-life destruction of the World Trade Center, which was broadcast live throughout the world. Explain whether you think people in the 1930s acted rationally or irrationally.
The invasion of London in this novel can be compared to the attack against New York City in 2001. Write a report about the ways people behaved at that time, comparing and contrasting them to the behaviors that Wells describes.
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Like The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds is a seminal work — it sets precedents. It is the first "alien invasion" novel; all subsequent "alien invasion" novels owe something to Wells's novel, which set standards for the genre that are still in force. The battle of wits between overmatched human beings and merciless invaders, exotic alien war-machines, and heat rays all date back to The War of the Worlds. Wells's insistence on the accuracy of the novel's background details — from a scientific explanation of the astronomical relation between Earth and Mars to place names in the English countryside — has been an important standard for later science fiction. Part of the excitement of reading The War of the Worlds is following Wells's inventiveness — of watching a mind show readers what they have never seen before.
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Wells wrote several visionary novels similar to The War of the Worlds. These books were called "scientific fantasies" because the term "science fiction" had not yet been invented. The Time Machine focuses on strong social themes about the ethical treatment of the laboring classes in an industrial society, and it, too, has an apocalyptic vision of the future. The First Men in the Moon depicts frightening outer-space monsters, while The Invisible Man features a scientist whose ethics are so confused that he ends up trivializing his brilliant scientific advancementthe discovery of how to make people invisible. In The Island of Dr. Moreau, scientific knowledge is pursued at the cost of the brutalization of the natural world.
Orson Welles's 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds has become legendary and has itself been the subject of books and television shows. Howard Koch wrote the script, which was produced and directed by Welles for CBS radio. The radio play captured the journalistic tone and personal immediacy of the novel. The journalist character tells the story as if the events were actually occurring at the time of broadcast. The setting was shifted from England to northeastern America, and the place names were familiar to most listeners. The reportorial aspect of the tale was enhanced by having the story told in a series of interruptions of a fictive innocuous music program. Kenneth Delmar as the...
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An audiocassette version of Wells’s The War of the Worlds is available from Books in Motion. It was released in 1982.
The 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds, by Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre on the Air company, is of course the most famous and has become an important piece of American history because of the panic that it induced when it went out across the country.
The War of the Worlds was loosely adapted into a movie in 1953 by producer George Pal, and it starred Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. The adaptation won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects. It is available on VHS and DVD from Paramount.
A stage musical version of the story was produced in London in 1978. Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the “War of the Worlds” starred Richard Burton and had songs by David Essex and musicians from the bands The Moody Blues and Tin Lizzy. The soundtrack album achieved multiplatinum status and is available on CBS Records.
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What Do I Read Next?
Readers interested in reading more of Wells’s work can find this novel and First Men in the Moon (1901), The Invisible Man (1897), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Time Machine (1895) and several science fiction short stories all collected in a box set entitled Science Fiction Classics of H. G. Wells (2001) from Dover Thrift Editions.
Before Wells, French author Jules Verne was considered to be the top science fiction writer of the nineteenth century. Verne’s novels have stood the test of time. While The War of the Worlds might be looked at as the prototype for all sci-fi stories about alien invasions, Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) has influenced an entire category of subterranean fiction.
Ray Bradbury’s 1950 novel The Martian Chronicles tells the reverse of this story, as humans colonize Mars to escape a destroyed Earth and impose themselves on Martian culture.
Wells’s life, spanning from the Victorian period to World War II, was one of the most interesting in twentieth century literature. One of the best biographies of him is H. G. Wells: Desperately Mortal (1986) by David C. Smith.
The H. G. Wells Scrapbook, edited by Peter Haining, is organized, as its title says, as a scrapbook— it collects various bits of material related to Wells’s life, including possible sources of inspiration, newspaper clips, and...
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For Further Reference
Asimov, Isaac. "The Science Fiction Breakthrough." In Asimov on Science Fiction. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981. Asimov contends that Wells opened up the field of science fiction by focusing on the consequences of scientific advances. Special attention is paid to The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds.
Beetz, Kirk H. "H. G. Wells." In Research Guide to Biography and Criticism, edited by Walton Beacham. Washington, DC: Beacham Publishing, 1985. Provides an overview of the biographical and autobiographical resources available on Wells, as well as a survey of the major critical studies of Wells's works.
Dickson, Lovat. H. G. Wells: His Turbulent Life and Times. New York: Atheneum, 1969. A good short biography.
Gunn, James. "Prophet of Progress: 1866-1946." In Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction. New York: A & W Visual Library, 1975. A summary of Wells's importance in the history of science fiction.
Haynes, Rosalynn D. H. G. Wells, Discoverer of the Future: The Influence on His Thought. New York: New York University Press, 1980. A good study of how Wells employed his scientific views in his fiction.
Mackenzie, Norman, and Jeanne Mackenzie. H. G. Wells: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. The most complete biography, this emphasizes Wells's career.
Parrinder, Patrick, ed....
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Bibliography and Further Reading
Costa, Richard Hauer, H. G. Wells, Twayne’s English Author Series, No. 43, Twayne Publishers, 1967, p. 42.
Review, in Academy, January 29, 1898, pp. 121–22.
Review, in Critic, April 23, 1898, p. 282.
St. Loe Strachey, John, Review, in the Spectator, Vol. LXXX, January 20, 1898, pp. 168–69.
Wells, H. G., War of the Worlds, Harper & Brothers, 1898. Williams, Basil, Review, in Athenaeum, February 3, 1898, p. 178.
Bergonzi, Bernard, The Early H. G. Wells: A Study of the Scientific Romances, University of Toronto Press, 1961. Wells changed much after the turn of the twentieth century. By focusing on the early novels, Bergonzi is able to give concentrated consideration to the style that was evolving.
Haynes, Roslynn D., H. G. Wells: Discoverer of the Future, New York University Press, 1980. Haynes focuses on the influence of science on Wells’s ideas, giving the history of scientific development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the balance.
Hillegas, Mark R., The Future as Nightmare: H. G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians, Southern Illinois University Press, 1967. This book is principally about Wells, but it draws connection to the other writers who have raised fears about what the future might bring, including George Orwell (1984) and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)....
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Bibliography (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, Revised Third Edition)
Costa, Richard Hauer. H. G. Wells. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1985. Praises the novel’s vivid imagery, its superb characterizations, its antiutopian theme, Wells’s scientific knowledge of life on Mars, and his extraordinary sociological grasp of his own times.
Hammond, J. R. An H.G. Wells Companion: A Guide to the Novels, Romances, and Short Stories. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1979. Describes Wells’s ability to describe startling events happening to ordinary people, his remarkable anticipation of how crowds react to events of mass destruction, his superb evocation of actual settings, and his literary style. Includes a map showing the sites of the Martian invasion.
McConnell, Frank. The Science Fiction of H. G. Wells. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Compares the novel’s themes to Wells’s work as a scientific journalist. Discusses the narrative’s image patterns, contrasting the novel with other tales of invasion, the uniqueness of Wells’s description of the Martians, the role of the curate, and the relationship between realism and fantasy in Wells’s fiction.
Mackenzie, Norman, and Jeanne MacKenzie. The Life of H. G. Wells: The Time Traveller. Rev. ed. London: Hogarth Press, 1987. Compares the novel to scientific theories of catastrophe and stories of the apocalypse....
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