The plot of The
War of the Worlds is
lean and mean (it clocks in at under 140 pages in this edition) on the
whole, although this sometimes resolves into ramshackle on a finer
scale. The
narrator has an interesting tale of his own, but he also
supplies a good deal of information that he learned later, especially
the whereabouts and actions of his
brother. The book begins with the
narrator ruminating about the meaning of the invasion, a section of
lovely writing used to good effect in both the radio drama and the
musical. A cylinder from Mars lands on Hors ell Common, some
well-meaning folks with a white flag are vaporized with a heat-ray, and
the artillery is called in to deal with the matter. Too bad that
arrogance alone is no match for the Martians, who have the
aforementioned heat-ray as well as canisters of poisonous black gas.
More Martian cylinders land, more havoc is caused. The narrator tells
about what happens to his brother, a resident of London. The narrator''s
brother gets lots of dramatic moments: fleeing the city, saving two
women, and an entire sequence where a British ship called the Thunder
Child protects boats of refugees on their way to France. Meanwhile, the
narrator has met up with an irritating curate and they get trapped
beneath a house that was flattened by the landing of yet another
Martian cylinder. The curate goes mad and is devoured by the Martians.
The narrator escapes and meets up with an artilleryman who has also
gone mad. The narrator himself loses most of his sanity as he wanders
dead London, and approaches a Martian fighting machine in a moment of
suicidal frenzy. However, in one of the most famous endings in science
fiction, the Martians have all died of exposure to common terrestrial
bacteria. Later adaptations, like the radio play and the movie,
jettison all of the particulars of Wells'' plot business, and substitute
different locations with attempts at the same feel (which succeeded in
the case of the radio drama). Other adaptations, like the musical,
streamline the plot and keep the location.
The characters of The War of the Worlds
are mostly interesting. The narrator is the typical kind of erudite
British competent man, straight out of Kipling, except that the
narrator here is uttering Victorian heresy. Were the Martians superior,
God help us, to Britishers? What is the nature of power and do we
ourselves abuse it? He''s not afraid to ponder these matters and he has
a fabulously well-told tale to keep us on the edge of our seats in the
meantime. The narrator''s brother is a bit of a cipher, although we can
find out a few things about him from his actions (much the same as the
women that the brother meets). Wells shuffles the lesser characters on
and off stage with ease, and this puts us right into the chaos of the
situation. The narrator meets an artilleryman near the beginning of the
book, and they chat briefly. The narrator then endures much hardship
trying to find one particular person, his wife, only to run into the
same artilleryman later on. The irritating curate (who gets a greatly
expanded role in the musical) is the opposite number in a psychological
pas de deus with the narrator, as close quarters and diminishing food
destroy the social veneer of civility.
The War of the Worlds shows
several signs of its times, despite how well it has aged. The two women
keep their cool, but the narration often gives insight into how women
were viewed at the time. For example, this is how the curate''s reaction
to being stuck near to the new Martian pit is described: "He was as
lacking in restraint as a silly woman" (176). The only thing we know
about the narrator''s wife is her fears and how she is trying to
restrain him from doing what he wants. In addition, as much as the book
turns the British Empire on its head, Wells still uses the same lingo,
which is problematic to say the least. In the first chapter of the
novel, we mous paragraph, as the narrator reflects on the
nature of the Martians:
And before we judge them too harshly, we must remember
what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not
only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and dodo, but upon its
own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their
human likeness,
were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by
European immigrants in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles
of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit.
(78).
There are several troublesome things here. "Human
likeness"? Also for people who still believed in human superiority (and
European superiority), the irony of "apostles of mercy" might be
completely lost. Of course, as the book progresses past this early
passage Wells destroys every human hope, and even the Thunder Child
sinks, despite its heroic dying efforts. The human race still survives,
but only because the Martians overlook one of the most basic
precautions for visiting a different planet. There''s also the troubling
link between the role of disease in colonialism (smallpox blankets for
example) and its role here. Is Wells reworking the idea or unaware of
it? Despite how "obvious" the message is, the argument for Wells as
anti-colonialist can never be completely closed.
The War of the Worlds is now
more than a hundred years old. The theme of alien invasion has been
reworked, contradicted, impugned, revamped, and taken to the movies
innumerable times.