All
societies, through-out
history have always been
cruel. And all will be someday, but it all depends on the
perspective of the time looking at the
society to decide how. In
H.G. Wells's, The
War of the Worlds, he allegorizes
British Colonialism by depicting a
Martian invasion that parallels the
cruelty found within a dominating society.
H. G. Wells is most renowned for his pioneering of the Science Fiction genre, however he was also a well known essayist, short story writer, historian, autobiographer and critic. Born in Bromley, England, Wells was a naturally creative and perceptive child. His inquisitive nature led him to the later development of his interest in the fiction world.
In his novel, The War of the Worlds, Wells depicts an apocalyptic vision of a world invaded by Martians. The book begins with an explanation as to why the
aliens left their native planet, Mars, due to depletion of their natural resources. When a meteorite, later identified as a metallic cylinder, crash lands near London, the citizens of the area look on with amazement, hoping for a peaceful meeting. Instead they find themselves besieged with fatal Martian heat rays. The narrator flees from the scene to tell his family what he has seen. Up until this point it was believed that extra terrestrials would not be able to function on Earth, due to it's stronger gravitational pull.
Soon after the initial onslaught, the cylinder becomes dormant and life returns to normal. This is until a second cylinder arrives, not far from the first, and repeats the behavior of it's predecessor. The narrator hears gunshots and thunder which prompts him and his family to leave the area. They escape to a relative's house where he leaves his wife and returns to aid his neighbors and friends. He witnesses the landing of the third cylinder, and the first of the Martian tripods gathering around it. The narrator meets an artilleryman, and they decide to travel towards London, however have to alter their path due to the Martians blocking the way. At midday they see Martian tripods in a river, and one is destroyed by the army. After the fall of the tripod, the narrator and the artilleryman are separated, and the narrator escapes by boat, where he meets a curate.
The story then shortly switches over to the narrator's brother, who is in London. The fourth cylinder hits and word of a poison gas, sprayed by the Martians over all the villages, brings panic to London, and people begin evacuating. The next day, his brother leaves, and on the way out rescues two women and their cart. They board a paddle steamer and witness the destruction of two more Martian tripods by a torpedo-ram.
Returning to the narrator, the story bends back to the rescue of his wife. Unfortunately, he is trapped in a house with the curate, and witnesses not only the Martians and their machines, but their savage treatment of their human captives. They suck out their blood for nutrition, and he resolves to escape. However the curate loses his sense and begins yelling, which causes his death at the hands of the Martians who hear him. The narrator hides for days, until finally escaping. He reaches London to discover the Martians have finally been annihilated, not by a human device, but by natural bacteria.
Wells's depiction of the Martians as hideous creatures invokes a sense of horror and fear that he felt Colonialism inflicted upon it's victims.
Wells's Martians are more than just physically repulsive. He suggestedthat they have evolved beyond the capacity for emotions like love and pity. He portrayed them as cold, calculating and unfeeling (Nardo, 38).
Like the Martians, Wells believed that the British were unsympathetic to the natives of the land they were systematically colonizing. He saw the natives of these lands victimized in the most horrific ways. They were denied all rights and freedoms inherent to mankind, and the domination of British control was gaining strength daily.
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; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinies the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water ... Across the void of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beats ... intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us (Wells, Book 1, 1).
This shows Wells view of the British as unsympathetic, however credits them with intelligence, and careful planning.
At the novel's conclusion, the Martians are destroyed by a simple bacteria, to which they have no natural immunity. This is a prophecy of how Wells sees Britain's demise as a world power. “The last chapter of the book is a reflection by the narrator on the effects on mankind of the Martian's invasion” (Werkmann, 2).
Critics praised Wells for his modern thinking. In his novel he attacked the abuses of British Imperialism. By the end of the nineteenth century people began to criticize the British policy of expanding and maintaining a worldwide empire (Nardo, 39). Wells singled out the violent methods used by the British settlers in Tasmania; they used superior weapons against the helpless natives. Wells compared the treatment of the human beings by the Martians to the slaughter of the Tasmanians by British settlers (Brians, 1).
H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds examines the shortcomings of the society of the time through an allegory paralleling the British Imperialism to the horrors of an alien invasion. His progressive views of the world around him made this science fiction author globally renowned.
Works Cited:
Brians, Paul. “Study Guide for H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds.” Study Guides for Various Works. 4 Mar. 2004. <http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/science_fiction/warofworlds.html>
Nardo, Don. The Importance Of H.G. Wells. San Diego: Lucent, 1992.
Wells, H.G., The War of the Worlds; The Time Machine; and Selected Short Stories. New York: Platt & Munk, 1963.
Werkmann, Sven. “Summary; The War of the Worlds.” Krefelder Referate Homepage. 4 Mar. 2004. <http://www.krref.krefeld.schulen.net/referate/englisch/r0848t00.htm>