"The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells

This is an essay I wrote for a literature class.

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

In The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells uses the familiar-to-his-readers setting of England and one of the first alien invasion plots to make the point that despite all our efforts and accomplishments, humans still don’t have everything under our control.

Wells’s plot is relatively simple. Martians launch capsules from Mars to invade Earth; these capsules land in England. The Martian invaders emerge from their capsules in three-legged vehicles and proceed to effectively annihilate resistance in England via the “heat-ray” (which causes anything it’s pointed at to burst into flames) and “black smoke” (basically poison gas). The main character evades the Martians by hiding, and he is present when they are wiped out by plague due to their lack of immune systems. Though foreshadowed by the same thing happening due to the “red weed” plant they brought with them, this may still seem like a deus ex machina; however, as the book’s message involves relying on God for help in times of trouble, it can be more correctly understood as a Deus sans the ex machina. The book’s premise is scientifically implausible from a modern perspective, but a lack of detailed description of the science behind the Martians prevents The War of the Worlds from seeming dated.

The book’s point is that while we can make a difference, much of life is still beyond humanity’s ability to control or change. We must still rely on God’s assistance to help us through troubles which we would otherwise be helpless to avert. This is demonstrated by the fact that while there is resistance to the Martian invasion, and a few of their three-legged “fighting-machines” are destroyed by artillery or warships, for the most part the Martians are unstoppable as they overrun England. Their complete annihilation by disease is representative of God’s assistance with problems that humans, even with our technological prowess, cannot meaningfully affect by ourselves.

The War of the Worlds is set in England, Wells’s home country. Its familiar setting would have made the Martian invasion hit closer to home for the original British readers, emphasizing even further humanity’s helplessness in the face of the Martians. By contrast, if the Martians had landed in the Amazon Jungle, the American West, or the Siberian tundra, much of the original book’s impact would have been lost due to the inherent exoticness of those settings to British readers: it would have had more of the flavor of an adventure story, like Tarzan or The Lost World. Setting the book in England contributes to the story by making it more realistic for its original audience.

In conclusion, The War of the Worlds uses the Martian invasion of England to demonstrate that humanity, for all our scientific achievements, must still rely on God to help us through troubles we cannot overcome on our own.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence.

4 stars.

(Endnote: It's kind of apropos that I'm releasing a review of the first alien invasion story... on Star Wars Day.)