When ‘War of the Worlds’ was first published, why was the book so popular and shocking? What message, do you feel H.G Wells was trying to communicate to his reader?
War of the Worlds was first published in 1898, at this time Britain had the largest empire in the world therefore the Victorians always considered themselves highly superior to any ‘outsiders’. The British Empire at this time consumed a whopping 33% of the entire Planet. Britain had acquired this empire by seeing others as no real threat, little effort was needed in order to defeat others and gain their land and empires. In the Victorian era Very few people had very little knowledge of Mars or any other planet and this is where we see Wells invent some quite outrageous about ‘the cold and desolate planet’ that people will believe because nobody knows otherwise.
Right from the start Wells contrasts and Mocks the British attitude by saying that, “Human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their affairs they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm in a drop of water.” Wells always bases whatever he says on scientific fact and language this is because this is a good field of knowledge that many people are familiar with, “The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles. Wells uses his inventive and creative mind to translate what seems an unbelievable story seem realistic by including current affairs and news stories, bringing real life into the story he creates makes the whole fiction seem transformed into something marginally believable. Well’s book was the first to ever speak of Martians, and the actual destruction of London itself, Wells emphasises the fact that London is in danger. The destruction of such a huge empire at this time and the attitude of the Victorians created an immense story which made it so original and overall incredibly shocking to the whole nation.
