The War of the Worlds
By h.g. wells, the war of the worlds essay questions.
The Martian invaders are terrifying in every aspect, but they possess one particular ability that was uniquely scary at the turn of the 20th century. What is this ability, and why would it have inspired terror among British readers?
The novel was published in 1898, just five years before the Wright Brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk, and hot air balloons were already in widespread use. There was fear that an enemy nation—most likely Germany—might use hot air balloons to conduct warfare from the air. The description of an enemy able to move through the air was a real and palpable fear for readers, who could quite easily replace the Martians in their imagination with soldiers from another European power.
What is the narrative effect of the narrator's first-person narration being set six years after the events he describes? How might the narrative have been different if it had been written in the form of a daily journal as events are taking place?
The first person point-of-view automatically primes readers to identify with the human perspective of the narrator as he faces the horrors of a superhuman war and the concomitant genocide. The narrative probably would not have been as compelling in a journalistic style because much of the background information on the Martians would not have been logically or rationally available to the narrator at the time of the invasion. The time lag provides a narrative explanation for why the narrator knows as much about the invaders as his narration demonstrates.
If the fear of an army invading England from the sky indicates adds to the terror for the reader, what elements of the novel might make them consider their own country inspiring fear as an invading force?
The Martians function as an interplanetary stand-in for England and its imperialist aims. The idea of a flying enemy conducting warfare inspired terrifying images of foreign pilots for British readers, but the larger portrait of a civilization with finite resources needing to colonize foreign lands for the purpose of supporting their needs and desires could be extrapolated as a symbol of any powerful nation taking over a less dominant civilization. This was a frequent occurrence in European history, including Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, and England under Queen Victoria. Thus, the Martians can be considered a kind of double symbol that shows how terrifying the concept of colonialization is for everyone: even if life can sometimes be good for the subjugator, the overall concept puts everyone involved under constant threat of being invaded or subordinated at one time or another.
In the first few chapters of the book, it takes a long time for the populace to realize the dangers of the Martian invasion; even after the cylinder on the Woking commons opens and vaporizes the peace delegation, most people are unaware of the threat. Do you think this would be different if the story was set in the modern era with modern technology? Why or why not?
Ironically, we might still end up doubting this kind of Martian threat with our modern, instant access to worldwide information—we might even doubt it more than those in the narrative did. Most people would assume that the videos and reports of Martians were a joke or a prank; high-quality video editing software now makes it possible to spoof a Martian invasion convincingly. Moreover, most people do not want to assume that their way of life is threatened, so they would likely stick their heads in the sand and avoid the invaders entirely until it is altogether impossible to do so.
How does the narrator's identity influence the reader's experience of The War of the Worlds ?
The narrator is an English man who has lived a life of peace and tranquility—he has never experienced war, invasion, or colonization before. Had the novel been narrated by someone who came from a culture that had experienced these things, the reader might have experienced less fear or disorientation since the narrative voice would have better known what to expect and how to survive. Also, the narrator has no children or other dependents to look after in the midst of the chaos, which puts the focus more on the concept of superhuman invasion/genocide rather than on the family life of any particular, fleshed-out character.
The War of the Worlds Questions and Answers
The Question and Answer section for The War of the Worlds is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
Which word from paragraph 4 provides context that supports the meaning of the word shivered?
You want to connect one of your choices with the word shivered?
I might consider: B - a line of flame high in the atmosphere
What two factors help the Martians overcome the gravitational differences between Mars & Earth?
From the text:
The atmosphere of the earth, we now know, contains far more oxygen or far less argon (whichever way one likes to put it) than does Mars’. The invigorating influences of this excess of oxygen upon the Martians indisputably did much...
Is the narrator more afraid of the visitors, or is he intrigued by them?
Sorry, I can't write your essay for you. The Narrator manages to survive past the end of the invasion mostly unharmed. Despite the relative stoicism he displays throughout the novel, prolonged exposure to the atrocities that the alien invaders...
Study Guide for The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds study guide contains a biography of H.G. Wells, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
- About The War of the Worlds
- The War of the Worlds Summary
- Character List
Essays for The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.
- The War of the Worlds: A Critique of Imperialism
- Influence of Darwin's "Origin of Species" on Literature
- Not Quite Safe: Concluding The War of the Worlds
- Depictions of Danger in Frankenstein and The War of the Worlds
- Martians in Wells’ War of the Worlds and Movie Adaptions: Cultural Imperialism
Lesson Plan for The War of the Worlds
- About the Author
- Study Objectives
- Common Core Standards
- Introduction to The War of the Worlds
- Relationship to Other Books
- Bringing in Technology
- Notes to the Teacher
- Related Links
- The War of the Worlds Bibliography
Wikipedia Entries for The War of the Worlds
- Introduction
- Publication
- Scientific predictions and accuracy
The War of the Worlds
60 pages • 2 hours read
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 1, Chapters 1-8
Book 1, Chapters 9-13
Book 1, Chapters 14-17
Book 2, Chapters 1-5
Book 2, Chapters 6-10
Character Analysis
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Discussion Questions
Although we now know a Martian invasion to be an impossibility, the world has experienced many other enormous catastrophes in the years since Wells wrote this book. Choose one and compare it with Wells’s Martian invasion.
While the Martians are seemingly monstrous, irredeemable villains, the narrator also provides many reasons to identify with or even to pity them. Compose a thoughtful, multifaceted defense of the Martians.
If part of Wells’s goal in writing The War of the Worlds was to confront those who had benefited from colonialism with its evils, how successful is he in this endeavor? To what degree does the introduction of aliens benefit or undermine this goal?
Don't Miss Out!
Access Study Guide Now
Related Titles
By H. G. Wells
The Door in the Wall
H. G. Wells
The Invisible Man
The Island of Doctor Moreau
The Red Room
The Time Machine
When the Sleeper Wakes
Featured Collections
School Book List Titles
View Collection
Science & Nature
Victorian Literature
Victorian Literature / Period
Mobile Menu
- Find a Tutor
- Connection User
- Edit Profile
- Forgot Password
- Novelguides by Title
- Reports & Essay by Title
- Quotes by Author
- Novelguides by Author
- Ask a Question
- Novelguides
- Connections
- Reports & Essays
- Ask Question
- Tutor's Market Place
- How it Works
What are You Studying?
Novelguide rooms, novelguide: search by author, novelguide: search by title, book navigation.
- War of the Worlds: BOOK ONE - 1,2,3,4,5
- War of the Worlds: BOOK ONE - 6,7,8,9,10
- War of the Worlds: BOOK ONE - 11,12,13,14,15
- War of the Worlds: BOOK ONE - 16,17
- War of the Worlds: BOOK Two - 1,2,3,4,5
- War of the Worlds: BOOK Two - 6,7,8,9,10
- War of the Worlds: Characters
- War of the Worlds: Metaphors
- War of the Worlds: Theme
- War of the Worlds: Top Ten Quotations
- War of the Worlds: Biography
War of the Worlds: ESSAY AND QUESTIONS
SUGGESTED ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. After the release of Steven Spielberg’s 2005 adaptation of The War of the Worlds, one reviewer wrote:
Spielberg seems to be driving at a point… about American empire. First, the film is released on a July 4 weekend, has Ray [the protagonist, played by Tom Cruise] living in a row house with flags flying everywhere, portrays Ray exclaiming that the lightning is like a July 4 fireworks show—an explicit allegory for the aliens as American imperialists theme, has real U.S. military troops and equipment as extras in some spectacular battle sequences, and then ends in Boston around a statue of a Minuteman (not a real one, but one tailor-made for the film). The most important scene is the one involving the statue, covered in dying red weeds, which is the film’s climax, since it appears right next to the first fallen [Martian] tripod. Cruise’s character tears away part of the dead weed strangling the statue and crushes it in a scene framed with the Minuteman statue behind him, while he proclaims that “It’s dying”
— http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1442462/posts ; accessed 30 September 2008.
In a brief essay, discuss the ways in which the novel shares or does not share this “point… about American empire” which the reviewer believes Spielberg wishes to make.
>Although answers may vary, students may respond that, while the reviewer’s comments seem to indicate a belief that Spielberg’s film celebrates American imperialism (garbed in patriotic guise), Wells’ novel offers several solid critiques of nationalism and imperialism, notably the cautionary note that the Martians, who expand their “empire” through heartless application of what can easily be deemed military technology, represent the future evolutionary state of humanity.
2. The narrator identifies the mass exodus from London in I.17 as “the beginning of the rout of civilisation, of the massacre of mankind” (p. 445). This statement, while it doubtless seemed true at the time to the novel’s characters, does not ultimately prove true by the book’s end, since the Martians are defeated. In what sense, therefore, can it still offer a “true” reading of the invasion’s significance?
>Essays may focus on the fact that, in the evacuation of London, the novel’s recurring identification of civilization with rational thought again appears: for example, at one point the narrator describes the throng as an “eddy of people” in which “weaklings elbowed out of the stream” (p. 441; I. 16)—a social Darwinian description of the panic that replaced reason when the population fled. Or, essays may focus on the ways in which the invasion does literally strip away the veneer of human civilized behavior: for instance, as “the scattered multitudes” grew hungry, “the rights of property ceased to be regarded” (p. 447; I.17)—people revert to “survival mode” rather than the legal and social constructs on which civilization rests. In either case, essays should also note the definite division of time the invasion causes (see II.10). “Civilization” can never be the same after the panic of the invasion has revealed to humanity what social Darwinism posits as its true nature: another animal species struggling for existence.
3. Compare and contrast the characters of the curate and the artilleryman as reflections on responses to the Martian invasion. How does each character further the development of the novel’s overarching themes?
>Both the curate and the artilleryman react in fundamentally flawed ways to the Martian invasion. The curate succumbs to blind panic, retreating from the reality of the crisis in a theology that posits the events as punishment from a wrathful God. This attitude leaves no room for thoughtful human response; it is fatalism dressed up as piety. Where the curate thinks too little about how to respond to the invasion, however, the artilleryman thinks too much : the narrator ultimately rejects the artilleryman’s schemes for a guerilla resistance because the soldier puts no effort into working to bring them about. His reaction, then, is one of sloth disguised as planning. Over and against both characters, the novel suggests that consistent, calm, deliberate action is the proper human, civilized response to crisis.
4. As the novel begins, the narrator is preparing a series of papers on the probable developments of moral ideas as civilisation progressed” (p. 358; I.1). These papers reappear at the novel’s end, as the narrator draws attention to the fact that he was interrupted—by the invasion—while drafting them (p. 513; II.9). What significance does Wells’ use of these papers to “book-end” his tale have?
>The subject of the narrator’s paper is a fitting one for a learned man in late Victorian England. That society often assumed technological progress would inevitably lead to ethical progress. Such an attitude reflects a subscription to a kind of “social Darwinism” (not advanced by Charles Darwin himself), a belief that imparted a moral dimension to “the survival of the fittest”: i.e., that those people who survived deserved to survive. In The War of the Worlds , the Martian invasion gives the lie to the idea that technological progress necessarily leads to moral progress, as the invasion lays bare not only the Martians’ ruthlessness toward humanity but also, at several junctures, human beings’ inhumanity toward each other.
5. The narrator’s reaction to the Martian handling-machines is worthy of note: “The contrast between the swift and complex movements of these contrivances and the inert, panting clumsiness of their masters was acute, and for days I had to tell myself repeatedly that these latter were indeed the living of the two things” (p. 473; II.3). How does this reflection on life interact with the larger themes of the novel?
>Martian technology is clearly highly advanced—so much so that the mechanisms seem more alive to the narrator than their masters. The novel has already suggested, most notably in II.2, that Martians represent a possible evolutionary future for humanity. Humanity must therefore endeavor to not lose its essential qualities of life to its machines. Technology must not become more alive, more “human,” than those who develop and wield it. (Readers may further note an ironic allusion to the fact that the Martians are brining forth their aluminum-like raw material out of the clay of the earth. When God, in Genesis 2, worked the earth’s clay, God created a human being; God created life. When the Martians exercise god-like dominion over the planet, in effect using its own soil against it, they bring forth fuel for the destruction of human life. Here again, Wells may be sounding a cautionary note about that perennial moral concern of science fiction, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on, the perils of “playing God.”)
- Facebook share
Top Novelguides
Quotes by topic, report & essay.
- Thomas Jefferson: the Man, the Myth, and the Morality
- JFK: His Life and Legacy
- Gerald Ford
- Harry Shippe Truman
- Herbert Hoover
- The Presidency of FDR
- J.F.K. Biography
- James Madison
Popular Novelguides
- To Kill A Mockingbird Discuss & QA
- The Great Gatsby Discuss & QA
- Lord of the Flies Discuss & QA
- Adventures of Huck Finn Discuss & QA
- The Catcher in the Rye Discuss & QA
- Animal Farm Discuss & QA
- 1984 Discuss & QA
- Fahrenheit 451 Discuss & QA
- Odysseus Discuss & QA
- Great Expectations Discuss & QA
William Shakespeare Novels
Quotes: search by author, search reports and essays.
Novelguide.com is the premier free source for literary analysis on the web. We provide an educational supplement for better understanding of classic and contemporary literature. Novelguide.com is continually in the process of adding more books to the website each week. Please check back weekly to see what we have added. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments or would like any additional information. Thanks for checking out our website. More Details
Our Networks
- novelguide.com
- studyhall.novelguide.com
- Homework Help
- flashcard.novelguide.com/
- video.novelguide.com
- Share Report & Essay
- Join a school
- Join a teacher group
- Test Prep Material
Useful Links
- See what's new on our blog
- All Question
- Novelguide Authors
- Search Your School
- Teacher ratings
- study guides
- lesson plans
- homework help
The War of the Worlds Essay Topics & Writing Assignments
Why do the humans think they are immune from a Martian attack? Be specific, and give at least five reasons.
Why do the Martians choose Earth as a target for their invasion?
How does this novel show that crisis reveals a person's true character?
What advantages do the Martians have over the humans, and vice versa?
How and why do people use a crisis for personal gain in War of the Worlds?
Describe the Martians in detail, and explain why they are so different from humans.
(read more Essay Topics)
FOLLOW BOOKRAGS:
Home / Essay Samples / Literature / Books / War of The Worlds
War of the Worlds Essay Examples
The war of the worlds by h.g. wells: martians, technology, and you.
The theory of the existence of life on planets other than Earth has been debated for thousands of years. The fifth century BCE atomists Leucippus and Democritus are credited as two of the earliest advocates of the theory of extraterrestrial life. The theory of Martians,...
The Analysis of the War of the Worlds and 1984
Literature has seen some of the most tyrannical characters of all time. The exploration of “totalitarian mindsets has been examined since the writing of Shakespeare’s powerful villains. Subsequently, both H.G Well’s “The War of the Worlds” and George Orwell’s “1984” present the influences power can...
The War of the Worlds Broadcast in 1938 and Its Impact on Public
Space is one of the most fascinating unknowns in our natural world. While many may not consider this an unknown, the vastness of space will never be fully uncovered due to it being never-ending. It goes on and on and we only have a mere...
Critique of British Imperialism in the War of the World
Could you imagine a world where people are herded like cattle, branded, and then used for selfless, personal, gain? In addition, could you fathom those same less fortunate and subjugated people, not having the ability to fight back, despite their best intentions. In the brief...
The Future Perspectives in the War of the World
Written in the year 1898, by H.G Wells, the novel war of the Worlds, is totally based on the future perspectives ahead of the 19th century regarding the new things that were discovered by people in terms of rapidly changing world in that era. The...
Trying to find an excellent essay sample but no results?
Don’t waste your time and get a professional writer to help!
You may also like
- The Crucible
- The Yellow Wallpaper
- The Alchemist
- The Tell Tale Heart
- Literary Genre
- A Tale of Two Cities
- Everyday Use
- Phillis Wheatley
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
- A Modest Proposal Essays
- The Interlopers Essays
- Beowulf Essays
- Song of Solomon Essays
- Harry Potter Essays
- The Poisonwood Bible Essays
- Jane Eyre Essays
- Candide Essays
- The Thing Around Your Neck Essays
- Forge Essays
About War of the Worlds
H. G. Wells
United Kingdom
Science fiction
Wells describes the war between Martians and Earthmen as a war between the comfortable present of suburban English complacency and the world of the future of horrifying technology and inhumanity.
The War of the Worlds chronicles the events of a Martian invasion as experienced by an unidentified male narrator and his brother. The story begins a few years before the invasion.
The Curate, The Artilleryman, The Pits, The Martians
The Nartor, Martians, The Artilleryman, The Curate, The Narrator's Brother, The Narrator’s Wife, Ogilvy, Henderson, Landlord, Mrs. Elphinstone, Dr. Elphinstone, and Ms. Elphinstone
samplius.com uses cookies to offer you the best service possible.By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .--> -->