TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MANABI

SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES & LINGUISTICS

ENGLISH AT THE upper intermediate LEVEL

RESEARCH PROJECT
on

By

2012

The War of the Worlds Summary

Mars is a planet older than Earth and has entered the cooling-off stage. The drop in temperature and sea level drives its inhabitants to devise a method of getting off the planet. They fire themselves off in canisters towards Earth. The astronomer Ogilvy sees this and becomes excited, and gradually the rest of Britain takes an interest in Mars. Articles are run in the papers and people begin watching the flame, which appears when the canisters are shot into space around midnight for ten nights altogether. However, no one has any idea what is about to happen and life continues on. The narrator for example, learns to ride a bicycle. It lands and Ogilvy sets off to find the fallen meteorite (which is what he believes it to be). When he thinks there is a man inside it, he hurries off to tell someone, finally convincing the journalist Henderson. The news spreads and soon there is a crowd about the pit that the landing caused. A young shop assistant is knocked in by the crowd of people pushing for better positions. The cylinders top unscrews and the Martians emerge. They are a bit larger than humans and have many tentacles. They lack bodies but have heads with big eyes. At the sight of them, the frightened crowd runs off to

shelter behind trees. The shopkeepers figure stands out against the setting sun, struggling to get out and then it disappears into the pit. The crowd remains stunned but eventually curiosity gets the better of them and people begin to move closer. The Deputation advances, until, after a flash of light and three puffs of green smoke, a machine rises and sends out a laser-like beam, sending 40 people up in flames. Then the machine goes back down into the pit. The narrator takes off running, terrified, until he collapses near a bridge. When he has regained control, he makes his way back home and tells his wife of the Martians over dinner. When he realizes he has scared her, he quickly explains that they cannot possibly be much of threat since the Earths stronger gravity will make them slow. Only those in the immediate area of the pit are concerned at this point and everyday activities continue. The Martians are busily at work in the pit and every so often the Heat-Ray emerges and kills those that have ventured too close. The military starts to become involved, realizing the danger of the situation. After a restless night during which the second cylinder lands, the narrator tries to get some news about the Martians but is unable to, as the military has control of the church towers and does not tell him anything. As they begin to ask people to leave the area, the narrator gets a dog cart from the landlord of the Spotted Dog, who is unaware of the situation. The narrator gets his wife and the two head to Leatherhead, where she has cousins. Shortly after their arrival, the narrator heads back out, reminding his wife that he promised to return the cart but really because he finds it exciting. By the time he returns, a severe storm is raging that sends the horse bolting down a hill. The cart overturns, landing the narrator in a puddle. Through the lightning, he sees a towering metal tripod. It is a machine that has a Martian inside it who controls it. He struggles home, seeing the innkeepers dead body on the way. While he is recuperating, he hears an artilleryman outside and invites him in. The shaken man saw one of the Martians destroy everything around him with the Heat-Ray, managing to escape himself only as a result of an accident that pinned him under his horse. The two start off together the next day, but the artilleryman soon leaves to make his report to the brigadier-general.

The narrator continues on his way, seeing many people preparing to leave thees. At Weybridge and ShepperPrevious PagePrevious Pageartians appear and begin using the Heat-Ray on everything around. Trrator and others jump into the r. Hidden guns fire at a Martian machine, bringing it down directly in the water, which soon becomes boiling hot. The narrator makes it to an abandoned boat and makes his way downstream. When he lands on a bank, he falls asleep from exhaustion and when he wakes up, the curate of the Weybridge church is sitting beside him. The curate is unable to comprehend the destruction and it is all he can do to follow the narrator about. At this point the book switches to tell of the flight from London, through the story of the narrators brother. News is slow in reaching London and so daily life has changed little. Fugitives from the towns that lay in ruins start arriving, and this sparks more interest. Then early on Monday morning, policemen are going from door to door, shouting warnings. Once the news sinks in that the Martians are unstoppable and are headed for London, the brother joins the crowd leaving. By this time, the Martians have changed their weapon of choice from the Heat-Ray to the Black Smoke, which is a deadly dark gas. The Martians are able to disperse it by firing a jet of steam into it. After news of its use spreads, organized opposition to the invasion ends and people flee. The brother travels with the wife and younger sister of George Elphinstone. They come upon a scene of horrible mass migration. Miserable people walking and in every type of vehicle are fighting their way forward, for fear of the Martians. When a mans bag of money breaks and he is run over by a horse and cart while he is attempting to pick up his loose coins, the brother and another man try to move him out of the way. The injured man struggles still to get his money and ends up crushed under a horse. Unwillingly but knowing it is necessary, the brother, with the aide of Miss Elphinstone, navigate through the crowds and secure passage on a paddle steamer to Olstend. As they are departing, they witness part of the fight between the warship Thunder Child and the Martians before the smoke and sunset cover the scene. Shortly after the story reverts back to the narrator, the fifth cylinder lands close by and he and the curate end up trapped in a house on the edge of the pit it created. The curates conflicting personality and loosening grip on reality eventually lead him to start talking loudly of his sins and his desire for food. The narrator hits him over the head with the butt of a meat chopper but it is too late to prevent the Martians from noticing. One comes up to the hideout and pulls out the still body of the curate. The narrator hides in the coal cellar for a few days. On the fifteenth day, the narrator realizes that the Martians have abandoned the pit and it is now safe to come out. He is amazed at the changes that have taken place, especially the widespread growth of the red weed from Mars. While he walks, with the vague idea of returning to Leatherhead and tracking down his wife, he gathers food where he can. At Wimbledon Common, he meets the artilleryman again, who has spent his time thinking up impossible plans and doing little. Quickly becoming disgusted by the card games and champagne, the narrator leaves him and goes to London. The city is covered with dust and dead bodies, and is

ominously quiet. The sound ulla, ulla repeats for some time but then it too stops. The narrator soon discovers it was the sound of a dying Martian. The narrator is overtaken with a desire to end his life by running at one of the Martians and having it kill him. However, when he reaches the top of Primrose Hill and looks down into the final pit the Martians have created, he sees them lying dead, having succumbed to known earthly bacteria to which men have become immune. He is not the first to realize that the Martian threat is gone and as a result of a telegraph to Paris, people all over the world joyously set out to return to their homes. The narrator wanders crazily for three days until a kind family takes him. When he has regained his health, they tell him of the destruction of Leatherhead but he wants to return there anyhow. When he gets back to his old home, he finds his wife there as well. Life gradually begins to take on its previous appearance, but the narrator still occasionally has flashbacks of the world under the Martians and fears their return.

About the author

H.G. (Herbert George) Wells was born in Bromley, England on September 21, 1866. His family was not well off-his father worked as a shopkeeper and cricket player and his mother was a housekeeper. Wells was the couples fourth and last son. At age eight a broken leg accelerated his interest in reading. When his father was no longer able to make enough to support the family, Wells became a drapers assistant at age 13. However, he was able to attend the Normal School of Science on a scholarship, where he met Thomas Huxley. Wells went on to teach biology until 1893. The Time Machine was published in 1895 and quickly became a favorite among readers. This was the first of a series of yearly successes that included The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds. This early writing cemented his reputation as the father of science fiction (though sometimes he shares this title with Jules Verne, whom he was compared to throughout his life) but Wells also wrote history and social commentary and was involved in politics for much of his life. As he aged, his writing became more realistic and pessimistic. Wells was married twice, the second time to one of his students. He also had a ten year affair with Rebecca West, whom he met after she reviewed his book Marriage. On August 13, 1946, Wells died in London, after living through two world wars and seeing Orson Welles broadcast of The War of the Worlds strike panic in listeners. Many of his books remain in print and are popular even today. Additionally, many of his novels have been dramatized as movies, including The War of the Worlds, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Time Machine. The stories of The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine have been made into movies at least twice each, demonstrating the continued popularity and fascination with the novels.

Description of the main characters Major Characters Narrator: A philosopher by occupation, his writing is interrupted by the arrival of the Martians, of
which he is one of the first to know. He survives a number of close calls but lives past the end of the invasion. With the exception of a few days insanity after finding the dead Martians, the narrator is a character with a strong grip on reality, though his reality becomes one he never thought possible. With determination, good judgment, and a will to live, he comes out of the ordeal in a much better state than many others.

Martians: A species that has developed great mental, and along with it, technical abilities in order
to escape their planet, which is rapidly becoming uninhabitable. Physically, they resemble an octopus, with their many tentacles and a head that stands without a body, and they feed by injecting the blood from a live organism into themselves. They show no signs of mercy when they arrive on Earth, their intent being conquest rather than compromise. They also show signs of recent awareness of microorganisms, and are killed by an earthly bacteria.

Artilleryman: After escaping a Martians Heat-Ray as a result of his horse tripping, he wanders
into the garden of the narrator, who takes him in. When they set off the next day, the artilleryman demonstrates a great sense of logic and caution, insisting on taking provisions and taking care to avoid the third cylinder. He joins back up with the military and is not heard from again until the narrator encounters him on Putney Hill. There it is clear that he has undergone quite a mental change. The former artilleryman has formed big, unrealistic plans while becoming content to drink and play games. The narrator leaves him shortly and his eventual fate is unknown.

Curate:

The representative of religion, who is not shown in a very positive light. He becomes

extremely distraught and senseless after seeing the destruction of his church and all of Weybridge. He is unwilling to part with the narrator, though their two personalities are completely incompatible. When they become trapped in the house together, the curate does not heed the need to ration or keep quiet. The narrator ends up hitting him in the head with a meat chopper in order to avoid attracting the Martians attention. It is too late for this, and when one comes to investigate, it pulls out the curates body.

Brother: A medical student whose tale is related by the narrator in order to show what went on in
London. After fleeing London among the crowds in the early morning hours, he meets up with the wife and sister of George Elphinstone and travels with them. Like the narrator, he is also logical with good sense, as he demonstrates throughout their trip (particularly when he attempts to stop the man who will be killed picking up money) to the Thames to secure passage out of Britain.

Minor Characters Wife:

She affects the plot more through providing a direction and motivation to the narrators

actions rather than through her own actions. She is concerned from the narrators first recounting of the Martians about the dinner table and is still pale with concern when she and the narrator part in

Leatherhead. He misses and thinks of her a lot, and his plans center around tracking her down. Both, having had the same desire to return home, however hopeless, they are reunited in the end.

Ogilvy: The astronomer who is one of the few to take an interest in the Martians from the start. He
sets off to find the fallen star (which was actually the first cylinder, but he is slow to accept this), and when he does, he tells Henderson, starting the spread of news. He is among the group of men attempting to uncover the cylinder and shortly afterward, a member of the failed and burned Deputation.

Henderson: A London journalist, who is the first to accept Ogilvys news of the landed cylinder. He
goes with him to see and sends out the news when he returns. He also participates in the excavation efforts and the Deputation.

Landlord: He is in a similar situation to the wife, in that he is not really a developed character but
affects the plot through his affect on the narrator. He lends the narrator his dog cart since he fails to understand the magnitude of the Martian threat. On his return home after the Martian defeat, the narrator needs time to reflect on the scene of the broken dog cart and news of the landlords burial.

Wife and Sister of George Elphinstone: The two women who travel with the narrators
brother. The wife is passive and her thoughts concern the fate of her husband almost exclusively. The sister is much more up to the situation, from coming back with a revolver to scare off the men to persuading her sister-in-law to get on the steamer.

Reasons for which the Author Wrote the Story

There was a specific event that inspired Wells. In 1894 Mars was positioned particularly closely to Earth, leading to a great deal of observation and discussion. Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli had reported seeing "canali" on Mars, meaning "channels," but the term was mistranslated as "canals," leading to much speculation about life on the red planet. [Although scientists were able eventually to photograph what seem to be large stream beds on Mars, these are on a much smaller scale than the blobs and blotches which misled Schiaparelli into thinking he had seen channels.] One of the 1894 observers, a M. Javelle of Nice, claimed to have seen a strange light on Mars, which further stimulated speculation about life there. Wells turned Javelle into Lavelle of Java, an island much on people's minds because of the explosion there in 1883 of Mount Krakatoa, which killed 50,000 people and drastically influenced Earth's climate for the next year. Wells became famous partly as a prophet. In various writings he predicted tanks, aerial bombing, nuclear war, and--in this novel--gas warfare, laser-like weapons, and industrial robots. It was his tragedy that his most successful predictions were of destructive technologies, and that he lived to experience the opening of the atomic age in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Wells was to become famous as a socialist and a utopian, but his science fiction novels are almost uniformly pessimistic about human nature and the future.

Values Included in the Story

Love: An intense feeling of deep affection: "their love for their country". Self-respect: dignity: the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect; "it was beneath his dignity
to cheat"; "showed his true...

Honest:

Free of deceit and untruthfulness; sincere. The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something.

Responsibility:

Friendships: The emotions or conduct of friends; the state of being friends. Integrity: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

Personal Opinion

For me the story has drama, horror, fiction and suspense though the first was that this book was less about Martians than it was about how humanity views itself as the "Kings of the Earth". Mankind has always had this annoying tendency to think that whatever serves us is good and right, however whatever injury is done to the Earth and any other living creature on it in obtaining whatever it is that we want. The Martian invasion served only to open our eyes to this blindness and willful ignorance. I think the story is very interesting because you get involved with a fantasy in which you think you are the hero.