“..But a panic terror not only of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an extraordinary affect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare look back.”
This quote tells us that it his surroundings made him become distressed and upset, the reign of the Martians had begun, it is described as though they had brought an aura of terror to the atmosphere of the Earth, consequently, making mankind become pests to this brutal suppression. The narrator says that he weeps silently which is something of what a child might do. This is a unlike a middle aged man, this shows that the narrator has changed and the invasion has affected him emphatically. The writer shows that he is concerned for humanities’ future by trying to put across to the reader that humans will struggle to a massive extent to stay alive if an invasion occurs, not just literally by a machine or an alien species but by disease or plague.
The narrator believed that humans were almighty and seemed very powerful. After the invasion, the narrator had then realised that they are a delicate and inferior species when compared to the likes of the Martians which are a much more advanced intelligence. This is a change in the narrator in his way of thinking. This shows that the writer has concerns for humanity because he worries for mankind at how easily they can be overpowered by such brutal forces.
At times of woe and suffering, humans need to work together as one to fight evil. Before the invasion, humans treated one another with disrespect and ungraciousness. This was realised by the narrator after the invasion when the attack was in progress. Humanity needed to change for the better and work as a group to avoid becoming extinct. This also shows that the writer is concerned for humanities future because humans may treat each other even worse in years to come and that he is using the narrator to portray this anxiety. Humans will compete for survival to see who the fittest folk are; hence, there will be competition and conflict amongst humans resulting in humans treating each other even worse.
Law and order are the rules and regulations which make the world just and equal. If these rules and regulations are removed, Earth will become chaos and all hell will break loose. The law and order before the invasion was sufficient for human existence with no extreme elements. This is why after the invasion, law and order had disappeared. This change is important as it can be noticed by the reader and most definitely by the narrator. This relates to the narrator because he was a good and honest man that would never foresee himself committing an act of murder but under the circumstances where his own life was at risk and where law and order had disappeared; murder suddenly became a way of survival. So there are two changes to be considered in the narrator at this point, the first is that he had realised that law and order had vanished and the second change is that the narrator had gone from an agreeable, respectable and righteous man to a criminal and a man of disgrace with blood on his hands. The writer has concerns for humanity because law and order will not stop a mass invasion as it all disappears due to insane human behaviour. The writer is trying to imply that human behaviour will become barbaric at times like this. Also, the narrator kills the curate making the reader think that the invasion has completely changes the narrator, the writer may be trying to imply that all men will at some point become disconcerting of others and will kill if put under serious pressure in certain circumstances.
The thinking of mankind is that the power that they hold was immense and that humans could conquer all. The writer is almost blatantly trying to make the reader realise that humans are not as powerful as they think because when an invasion occurs of some sort, they become helpless, science and technology is dematerialized and the only force left is nature. Human capabilities are overpowered without hesitation by the Martians and many are killed very quickly. There are forces in this world that scientists may still have not have discovered which may cease to be the conservation of the Earth. This is a very important change as it saves the world from becoming annihilated by the Martians; the narrator is changed by this because this certain force of nature has saved him from extermination. The writer has concerns for humanities future because he believes that humans think that they are much too powerful and they underestimate the power of the outside world and what effect it may have on the Earth. The writer believes human capabilities will not win against the odds; therefore, natural forces will prosper.
As a conclusion, after the changes of the narrator have been explained and how these changes reflect the writer’s concerns for humanities future, I can say that the narrator went from a normal life of a man living on Earth to a man with an experience where he had struggled for survival, murdered, eaten scraps from the street and realised many things about mankind which would not be thought about when leading a common and average life in London.