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Study Guide for H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds
synonymous with extinction, as in the expression "dead as a dodo." In the 18th Century the British almost eliminated the native inhabitants of Tasmania, an island off the coast of Australia, when they turned it into a penal colony. Wells several times draws parallels between the Martians' treatment of Earth and Britain's treatment of its colonies. The use of gigantic guns rather than rockets to launch space vehicles may have been inspired by Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865). In Orson Welles' production, the narrator is Ogilvy, the astronomer, introduced against the background of the ticking clockwork described here. What effect does it have on the novel to have an ordinary, unnamed narrator, not technically trained and often far from the center of activity? What irony is created by the topic of the series of papers he is writing? The bicycle had been recently invented, and Wells was learning how to ride one during the writing of the novel.
Chapter 2: The Falling Star
In the second paragraph, what evidence is there that Wells is trying to avoid making his narrator a perfect observer? Why do you suppose he does this? How is Ogilvy's first reaction to the movement of the cylinder top ironic? In the absence of broadcasting , the telegraph was the fastest means of communication, and ordinary people received the news by one of several different editions of newspapers during the day. What error do the first reports of the landing make?
Chapter 3: On Horsell Common
What methods does Wells use to make these events seem realistic?
Chapter 4: The Cylinder Unscrews
What is a Gorgon, and why might Wells have chosen to compare the Martians to one? In what way does Wells make his narrator distinctly unheroic?
Chapter 5: The Heat-Ray
X-rays were discovered by Roentgen in 1895; and novelists immediately began imagining all manner of other rays which could be used as weapons; but Wells is probably thinking here as well of ancient accounts of "Greek fire" projected against enemies to terrifying effect. What is the narrator's reaction to the attack?
Chapter 7: How I Reached Home
Wells' description of psychic numbing as a result of trauma seems very modern. Why is it important that the narrator not be an omnicompetent swaggering hero in the Arnold Schwarzenegger mold? What seems to be the narrator's attitudes toward working class people? Gravity acts "like a cope of lead" on the Martians; this phrase recalls the punishment of hypocrites in Canto 23 of Dante's Inferno, (read the excellent Mandelbaum translation online) in which the damned are forced to wear weighty leaden capes. What does this following phase imply about the state of the world after the Martian invasion: "in those days even philosophical writers had many little luxuries"? How does Wells once again compare the Martian invasion to British colonialism?
Chapter 8: Friday Night
"Canard" usually means "malicious lie," but here it means "hoax." Note that until the 1960s "love-making" meant pretty much the same thing as "courting;" it would be a mistaken to envision activity any [next page]