When H.G Wells wrote 'The war of the worlds' he intended it to be more than a science fiction novel.

When H.G Wells wrote ‘The war of the worlds’ he intended it to be more than a science fiction novel. What themes does he explore and in what ways are they related to the time and attitudes current, when the novel was written?

Matthew Stephen Roberts.

The War of the Worlds was written in 1898 by H.G Wells in response to several historical events such as the unification and militarization of Germany. Many books written in the late 1800’s were written in a semi-documentary fashion; and Wells borrowed this technique. ‘The Invisible Man’ and ‘The Time Machine’ were also written by H.G Wells and are similar in many ways to the War of the Worlds. H.G Wells’ hyper-realism later inspired Orson Welles to create his famed broadcast based on the novel.

The war of the worlds is mainly classed as a science fiction novel but that’s just the surface. If you look beyond the aliens and heat rays you can begin to understand the fact that H.G Wells explores his own predictions of the dark future. H.G Wells entwined his predictions of gas warfare, laser-like weapons and robots in war of the worlds alone!

It was tragic when he lived to experience the beginning of the atomic bomb age at Hiroshima. Maybe H.G Wells died thinking that his novels partly influenced the atomic age. H.G Wells was to become famous as a socialist, optimistic person when nearly all of his novels reflect pessimistic views of human nature. In 1898, England has many different views towards society. The society was segregated in the way that lower, middle and upper-class people lived their lives separately. H.G Wells was a middle-class man so there is slight unconscious bias in the slant of middle-class views. In this novel, I believe that Wells is saying that there is always someone that’s more advanced than you. I can show this by-

“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”. I believe that this is Wells’ way of thinking that the upper class people act towards what they believe ‘inferiors’.

The way that

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The way that

For many people nowadays science fiction or Sci-Fi as the media call it means films. For some people it means Star Wars and E.T. For others it signifies television shows or radio series. Either way, the media is around us everywhere. What many people don’t realise however is that science fiction as a genre of literature has been around since Mary Shelly wrote ‘Frankenstein’. The dramatic ‘rush’ of popular fiction and low quality novels illustrating a minor similarity to the genre of science fiction is diluting the quality of science fiction.

For any science fiction story to be “epic”, I believe it must affect the entire world.

This is definitely the case in the war of the worlds. We can see from the very beginning that the story is going to depict a conflict that involves the whole world just from reading the title.

“The war” shows us that there will be at least two sides involved in the story. The rest of the title, “Of the worlds”, consciously shows us that the story is dealing with conflict which puts the whole world at risk. Furthermore with in the opening paragraphs of the story this point is outlined more so to increase the involvement and anxiety within the reader, making them realise that indeed the stakes are high and the world is at risk.

“...in the last years of the nineteenth century this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s...intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.”

Here we can see the alien invaders of Mars have been watching our planet “keenly and closely” and devising a plan against us. It is said they have been watching our planet with “envious eyes”, which plainly indicates that the Martians are interested in our planet for themselves and will take it through the use of violence. Moreover they do not only wish to take our planet and use it as their own, but they also intend to use the human race as a life source. I believe that this is scaring the reader on two levels. The fact that they want our planet and furthermore, they want to eat us!

At the beginning of the novel Wells uses persuasion to fix the fact that it is possible for other beings to live on Mars. I can show this by-

“It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.”

As I read war of the worlds, I enjoyed the factor that Wells cleverly uses hardly any names for anyone. I believe he did this purposefully to put a seed in the reader’s imagination to grow and blossom. Maybe the reader will believe himself to be the narrator or one of the characters! I can show this by- ‘The curate’, ‘my brother’

At the beginning of the novel the narrator says “I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles” This intrigued me by the fact that it makes the reader feel involved.

By saying something that hardly anyone knows, is putting across that the narrator is assuming you’re intelligent. Another thing that involves the reader is how the narrator actually talks to the reader at certain points of the novel. He refers to you as “the reader”. This constructs the relationship between the narrator and the reader to a personal level.

“And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? 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, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand.”

To end, I’d like to say that I believe the single-most important factor in ‘The war of the worlds’ is the deep description of nearly everything in the novel. I believe this is a vital factor when it comes to Sci-fi. Because Sci-fi is hyper-realism-aspects which normal people may not understand need to be explained so they can gain a detailed, imaginative picture in their mind. The quote above proves that War of the Worlds is no exception and will forever be a science fiction masterpiece.

Matthew Stephen Roberts.