The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds
The Characters

The characters in the book are fairly simple.
The narrator- He was a philosopher who first who witnessed the arrival of the Martians and their destructive tripod. In the story, he was not the hero but the one who fled the Martians attack cowardly.
The narrators? brother- He was a student of biology in London. At first he underestimated the power of the Martians. He thought that they were only sluggish, ugly and weak creatures. His view might well have represented the view of the other Londoner.
The Martians- The Marians was like octopus with their numerous tentacles and a head without a body. They sucked other organisms? blood to survive. They show no mercy during the invasion.

The Setting

Most of the events happened in the countryside of early 20th centuries Southeast England. The home town of the narrator was Woking.
Wells? weapons described in the book were very advanced in England. It seems that iron-clad warship and battery cannons were old fashioned now but they are all the symbol of destruction at time. Almost everything in the story was up-to-date.

The Plot

The planet Mars was dead as the Martians were watching Earth jealously being a blue planet. Finally, one day they attacked Earth with their advanced and destructive technology.
The astronomer Ogilvy observed there were meteorites which were actually the cylinder of the Martians. He convinced to the journalist, Henderson that there were men inside them.
The news spread very quickly and soon people come to see the cylinders.
Many people at first thought the Martians were but fragile creatures. Later they learned that they were very wrong.
The Martians had giant tripods which had heat ray to burn people. The narrator saw all these things and he was desperate thinking human would be wiped out. He wanted to find his wife who was in Leatherhead. In the journey, he met an insane curate. The curate was so crazy that he almost risk the life of the narrator of being found by the Martians while hiding in the house. There was also an artilleryman who had mental illness of planning a unrealistic plan.
The Martians were dead at the end for they had no natural immunity to the germ and bacteria.

The Meaning behind the Story.

H.G Wells continued his style along his ?scientific romance? series that he always brought a strong satire and evolution idea in his book. War of the Worlds was one of the examples.
The Martians were represented as the European Nations. As that time, European nations had colonized different places. The humans were seen as the natives who had little technology compared to the European. Wells tried to say that the Imperialism would fade away as the story said that the Martians finally die.
Ironically, his idea can still be applied now. For example, USA is trying to influence other countries by culture (like McDonald).

The Controversy

When the story was adapted in radio to broadcast in 1938 Halloween day October the 30th, the people really thought that the Martians were coming to invade them. This caused a great panic.
Why?
Because at that time Mars was still a mysterious planet to them and they did not know if life exist there.