The War Of The Worlds.

Charles Darwin said that mankind would continue to evolve. He described the theory of evolution that some of us except today. Darwin suggested that all species adapted over time according to necessity and that we are all descended from bacteria. Species will continue to evolve as needs demanded.

This theory captured wells imagination clearly. Wells came up with the idea that man would one day come to the point of its evolution and that mankind would suddenly have a big head and big hands. He said this because all we do is work with our hands and use our brain a lot.

Wells also wrote a book before The War Of The Worlds, called The Man Of The Year Million. In this book he describes man changing and evolving. In the book he says that man would come to its last evolution stage and also says this “Watch them hop on their hands about the pure white marble floor. Great hands they have, enormous brains, soft, liquid, soulful eyes.” This quote shows mankind has come to its last point of evolution. He also describes humans just suddenly changing and having these kind of features.

In The War Of The Worlds its quite similar, he says mankind could evolve from better to worse and we could end up like the Martians. We could end up like this because the Martians have big heads and big hands and show no mercy to London, when the Martians try wiping out mankind.

The War Of The Worlds is an example of an invasion text. Wells describes how devastating the effects are in London and also describes what happens to the people. The Martians have a heat ray and they burn up London and its surroundings. Wells describes everything as if this was supposed to happen to mankind in London.

Because the British Empire started colonizing other countries and really all the Martians are doing the same thing. But the Martians are trying to take over London and wipe out the people there. Wells says in The War Of The Worlds “Before we judge the Martians to harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought upon animals.” What Wells means by this is that why should we judge the Martians, we killed our own animals and now today they are extinct such as the Bison

and Dodo.

Wells includes the reader by asking questions such as “The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader”. What wells is doing here is asking for the readers participation and he says it as if the person already has knowledge about Mars and knows what he’s talking about.

The novel is written to the first person. This is also an effective device to use in this novel because it makes it real and also makes it horrifying. The narrator’s occupation is “a speculative philosopher” and H.G Wells is a science fiction writer.

Wells describes his area of expertise for example he says “my particular province is speculative philosopher.” Wells wasn’t a scientist he was just interested in science.

In the novel this is seen as Wells referring to himself. Wells asks for the reader participation. “The planet Mars I scarcely need remind the reader…..” he asks the reader participation when he says “people who have never seen these structures and have only the ill – imagined efforts of artists or the imperfect descriptions of such eye witness as myself to go upon scarcely realize that living quality.”