Shaun Ditzler Pd. 3 War of the Worlds Ch. 1-9
The first chapter of the book starts out from the point of view of a man who has already experienced whatever the plot of the story is. He drops a lot of hints early on about the impending attack on mankind from Mars. This tells us that the narrator must have survived the events that are going to take place throughout the novel. Knowing this, we can ask the questions of why are the Martians attacking people, how how did they get to Earth, and what are they’re intentions? What do you think the martians want?
The main issue i would like to address is society’s reaction to the arrival of the Martians. It seems that the people of Woking and the other nearby towns were very enthralled by the news of landings, but in just a few short days most of the people seem uninterested or even uninformed about the Martians and the deaths of all those people. What is the reason for society’s apparent lack of interest in the recent happenings? More importantly, however, the military officers that the narrator talks to all have the same opinion about the Martians; that killing them now would be the best thing for humanity. This seems like a logical idea on their end since the Martians seem to be very hostile, but is it really a good idea to eliminate the first extraterrestrial species ever encountered by mankind?
-Shaun Ditzler
Category: Discussion Director, Per 3 WotW DD 5 comments »
February 13th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
In the beginging of the book the narrator describes the circumstance that Mars is in. They say how they don’t get a lot of heat, that it is very cold there. Also the narrator explains that the planet once had plenty of sea, and now they only have 1/3 of what they used to have. Most people believe that the Martians want to take over Earth. I believe, however, that they just want to blow the Earth up. I think that they just want to get rid of it becuase the Martians must love their planet, and why move to a new planet when they can just get rid of the planet that is causing them all the trouble. If you were put into a circumstance such as this, would you rather take over something foriegn just becuase it is better, or get rid of it so that you have everything that you need?
I don’t think that it is a very good idea that they should just wipe them out. I think that they should just try to get them trapped or tranquilize them so that they can study them and take notes. They could look at the structure of the Martians and build something similar to it to send to Mars. If they can send things to Earth, then we should be able to send things to Mars.
Finally, as for the lack of interest, I don’t believe that people actually realize what is going on. I think that they might just be dreaming. Or maybe they are so scared that they don’t think that there is anything that they could do so they are just going to go on with life. I think that they know that this could be the end of them. But what I don’t understand is why they might just sit there and watch themselves come to an end, rather than to fight and possibly capture the Martians and become foes. Then maybe they would be able to make an alliance and use the Martians to good will (such as providing them with the things that they need) and then they could do the same for them.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
In the beginning the narrator explains the type of shape Mars is in. Basically the planet is dying out and the beings that live there are going with it. They have been watching Earth for what seems to be a long time and due to jealousy of our abundance of life, wage war on us. They want to annihilate us and take over our planet so they can keep on living.
The society’s lack of interest is due to their arrogance. They think they’re the smarter race and that their own military can protect them and wipe the Martians out. They think that if/when these creatures get to hostile, they can just go away and everything will go back to normal; it will seem like nothing ever changed. Also, due to lack of information flow, other places in the world are not aware of Woking’s crisis and therefore think that the Martian landings aren’t a bad thing.
It probably isn’t a good idea to wipe them out on sight. But what can they do? Every time anyone gets to close to the pit, they get zapped. I agree. They should try any means of at least knocking the aliens out and then studying whatever is on their cylinders or the aliens themselves in order to prepare for any other aliens that may come later.
February 15th, 2009 at 11:37 am
hey there shaun!
February 15th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
In the beginning ;the narrator is focused on Mars and that he believes there is life there. So he is definitlydropping hints that there is going to be an
attack. Also the narrator speaks in a way that makes you know that he survived the attack which is no fun.
I believe that the martians were jealous. They just wanted to destroy our planet so they could save their planet.
Kody
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:56 am
Shaun: Some ok questions. Strikes a good balance between opinion and fact.
Responders:
Include names!
Don’t repeat each other!