The War Of The Worlds By Hg Wells Essay
The War of The Worlds by HG Wells was influenced by his life, more specifically his education and location, he was influenced by the time period so much so that the idea of invasion by the Martians in the novel connects to Britain's imperial tendencies (Youngs). Wells’s education had a heavy emphasis on science, especially Darwinism which is shown through the narrator’s scientific view and direct corrections to darwinism (Authors and Artists for Young Adults). Wells life is also presented in the text through the novel’s setting, which was where Wells lived (Sinclair) . The War of The Worlds is thought of by critics as a scientific romance, it was written in a prime time of romanticism, but at the time the novel was published it stunned the
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elite critiques because Wells’s work was so different than any other romances in the Victorian era (Gunn).
In the beginning of The War of The Worlds by H.G Wells life is normal and mundane in England besides for a few strange astronomical occurrences.
Then the Martians land in pits but are too heavy to move so they build themselves bodies and start terrorizing England with a heat ray. This continues for a while and then it gets worse-- the Martians are revealed to feed on the blood of other organisms but their favorites are humans, so they start dragging humans into pits. It seems like all hope is lost. Then all the Martians start dying because of a bacteria on earth that the Martians’s immune systems cannot handle. The narrator returns home by train to what he thinks is an empty home but his wife is waiting for him. The main character is the narrator. He is never given a name. He has a wife who went to Leatherhead when the Martians invade while he goes in search of information. He is very precocious and intelligent. The narrator’s brother is also a main character , he is only referred to as “my brother”. He is brave and attempts to flee London along with many other british people terrified of the Martians. The War of the Worlds is told from first person but shifts to third person omnipresent as the narrator starts telling his brother’s story . Wells also uses great description to describe England torn apart by the invasion by the Martians (Wells). Wells wanted his writing viewed as a ‘"as a system of ideas"’(Gunn). He was known as a writer of “scientific romanticism” later known as science
fiction.
Herbert George Wells, better known as H.G Wells, was born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, United kingdom. He was the fourth and youngest child of Joseph Wells, a cricket play and shopkeeper, and Sarah Neal Wells. (Authors and Artists for Young Adults). Herbert George was unwanted by his parents and ignored by his father. At seven years old Wells broke his leg before his mother could force him to work in the Atlas House, “Wells called it "one of the luckiest events of my life" and because of it, he wrote, "I am alive today and writing this autobiography instead of being a worn-out, dismissed and already dead shop assistant."’ (Gunn). While Wells recovered from this injury he read a lot. (Gunn) From the ages of 14-17 Wells was an apprentice to both a draper and a chemist, he detested these jobs and could not see himself following either of these career paths to his mother’s dismay. He then worked as a pupil-tutor for several years until he could finally convince his mother, Sarah Wells, to let him accept a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in South Kensington. (Authors and Artists for Young Adults). In 1891 Wells married his cousin, Isabel Mary Wells. Then after he had a hemorrhage Wells began an affair with his student and friend Amy Catherine Robbins. In 1895 Wells divorced Isabel Mary and married Robbins instead. Wells had many affairs (Authors and Artists for Young Adults), despite this Wells was a feminist and advocated for women’s rights throughout his career and life, he believed women could do anything that men could do (Smith) The most famous of Well’s affairs was with well-known writer Rebecca West, together they had a child named Anthony West out of wedlock. He had other children as well. He and Amy Catherine Robbins were married until she died (Authors and Artists for Young Adults)
At the Normal School H.G Wells studied biology and zoology under the teaching of Thomas H. Huxley, a famous darwinist and the founder of the Normal School (Gunn). Huxley’s teaching affected Wells, causing him to think of science and biology in particular “as radical and revolutionary” (Authors and Artists for Young Adults). Wells’s view on darwinism is shown when he writes in The War of The Worlds “It is worthy to remark that a certain speculative writer of quasi science repute, writing long before the martian invasion, did forecast for man a final structure not unlike the actual martian condition “His prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or December 1893, in a long publication, the Pall Mall Budget…” (Wells 144). The concept of evolution is blatantly shown when the narrator references a journalist who wrote about how humans would evolve into globish forms much like the Martians. Wells’s intense science based education “...strongly influenced his teaching, his fiction and his concept of writing, all directed toward young scientists and others eager to learn about the laws of nature. He used his knowledge not only to describe his own world, but also to offer a glimpse into worlds that might be.”(Smith).The narrator of The War of The Worlds is shown to be a man of science, much like H.G Wells early on in the novel when he references Darwin, “And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as alien and lowly as are monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence …”(Wells 11). This a direct connection to the basic Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest, this shows how Wells’s education affected The War of The Worlds by tying his beliefs to the narrator.
elite critiques because Wells’s work was so different than any other romances in the Victorian era (Gunn).
In the beginning of The War of The Worlds by H.G Wells life is normal and mundane in England besides for a few strange astronomical occurrences.
Then the Martians land in pits but are too heavy to move so they build themselves bodies and start terrorizing England with a heat ray. This continues for a while and then it gets worse-- the Martians are revealed to feed on the blood of other organisms but their favorites are humans, so they start dragging humans into pits. It seems like all hope is lost. Then all the Martians start dying because of a bacteria on earth that the Martians’s immune systems cannot handle. The narrator returns home by train to what he thinks is an empty home but his wife is waiting for him. The main character is the narrator. He is never given a name. He has a wife who went to Leatherhead when the Martians invade while he goes in search of information. He is very precocious and intelligent. The narrator’s brother is also a main character , he is only referred to as “my brother”. He is brave and attempts to flee London along with many other british people terrified of the Martians. The War of the Worlds is told from first person but shifts to third person omnipresent as the narrator starts telling his brother’s story . Wells also uses great description to describe England torn apart by the invasion by the Martians (Wells). Wells wanted his writing viewed as a ‘"as a system of ideas"’(Gunn). He was known as a writer of “scientific romanticism” later known as science
fiction.
Herbert George Wells, better known as H.G Wells, was born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, United kingdom. He was the fourth and youngest child of Joseph Wells, a cricket play and shopkeeper, and Sarah Neal Wells. (Authors and Artists for Young Adults). Herbert George was unwanted by his parents and ignored by his father. At seven years old Wells broke his leg before his mother could force him to work in the Atlas House, “Wells called it "one of the luckiest events of my life" and because of it, he wrote, "I am alive today and writing this autobiography instead of being a worn-out, dismissed and already dead shop assistant."’ (Gunn). While Wells recovered from this injury he read a lot. (Gunn) From the ages of 14-17 Wells was an apprentice to both a draper and a chemist, he detested these jobs and could not see himself following either of these career paths to his mother’s dismay. He then worked as a pupil-tutor for several years until he could finally convince his mother, Sarah Wells, to let him accept a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in South Kensington. (Authors and Artists for Young Adults). In 1891 Wells married his cousin, Isabel Mary Wells. Then after he had a hemorrhage Wells began an affair with his student and friend Amy Catherine Robbins. In 1895 Wells divorced Isabel Mary and married Robbins instead. Wells had many affairs (Authors and Artists for Young Adults), despite this Wells was a feminist and advocated for women’s rights throughout his career and life, he believed women could do anything that men could do (Smith) The most famous of Well’s affairs was with well-known writer Rebecca West, together they had a child named Anthony West out of wedlock. He had other children as well. He and Amy Catherine Robbins were married until she died (Authors and Artists for Young Adults)
At the Normal School H.G Wells studied biology and zoology under the teaching of Thomas H. Huxley, a famous darwinist and the founder of the Normal School (Gunn). Huxley’s teaching affected Wells, causing him to think of science and biology in particular “as radical and revolutionary” (Authors and Artists for Young Adults). Wells’s view on darwinism is shown when he writes in The War of The Worlds “It is worthy to remark that a certain speculative writer of quasi science repute, writing long before the martian invasion, did forecast for man a final structure not unlike the actual martian condition “His prophecy, I remember, appeared in November or December 1893, in a long publication, the Pall Mall Budget…” (Wells 144). The concept of evolution is blatantly shown when the narrator references a journalist who wrote about how humans would evolve into globish forms much like the Martians. Wells’s intense science based education “...strongly influenced his teaching, his fiction and his concept of writing, all directed toward young scientists and others eager to learn about the laws of nature. He used his knowledge not only to describe his own world, but also to offer a glimpse into worlds that might be.”(Smith).The narrator of The War of The Worlds is shown to be a man of science, much like H.G Wells early on in the novel when he references Darwin, “And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as alien and lowly as are monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence …”(Wells 11). This a direct connection to the basic Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest, this shows how Wells’s education affected The War of The Worlds by tying his beliefs to the narrator.