War of The Worlds

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6th December 06

How Does H.G Wells Show the Breakdown of

Social Order in the War of the Worlds and How

a Modern Reader Would React To This.

   In The War of the Worlds, Martians land and planet earth and reek havoc across the country. We follow the path of one person, only known as the narrator, as he tries to escape the Martians and save his own life. The story runs across many themes and techniques the main themes include Science vs. Religion, Imperialism and Industrialization, the key ideas are mainly the theory of science as a whole and how it's linked to the landing of the Martians.

The War of the Worlds was written by H.G Wells in the late 1800's. The style of the story is based on science; this is because Wells came from an extremely scientific background, as he came from a science school and met Thomas Huxley. This also influenced his other novels 'The Time Machine' and 'The Invisible Man.'

'How does Social Order breakdown' this is the question that I will answer. Social Order is how a group of people react to a certain event.

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   At the beginning of the story the Martians land, which is only witnessed by three people and only one of those people actually went to see what had happened, this is the narrator. He sees that a large metal cylinder has landed, as he tries to tell the local towns people they…'try to lock him up in the local town hall'… as they believe he was lunatic because no-one believes what he is saying. Eventually a few people turn up to look at the spectacle and describe the cylinder as …'a poison dart sticking out the skin of ...

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