War of the Worlds, Period 1, Taran Copenhaver, Connector
I believe that this novel can be connected with Lord of the Flies. in the War of the Worlds the people are attracted to the crater were the martians have landed. There is a hidden danger in the hole though. When the martians fell out of the ship they started killing. Havoc began to break out among the people. The same occured in the Lord of Flies. The boys had believed that the island was going to be fun, there were no rules, no adults, and there was a lot of space to play. Soon power struggles broke out and people were being killed. Just the same as the little boy with the birthmark who had disappered, the shop keeper had fallen in the hole and they never knew what had happened to him. The was that hidden danger that must have been in the spectators minds but they were so excited about somenthing new that they had dismayed it, the same as the boys on the island they knew that there was danger but they were so excited about being on the island that it temporarily put that out of their minds. Obviosly there will be violence and war in the story, but will the martians provide a sense of false comfort like the island did?
Category: Connector, Per 1 WotW Con | Tags: wotw per. 1 connector 5 comments »
February 10th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Sonam Sherpa
First off, Taran I’m pretty sure that the discussion director is supposed to start the conversation, but that’s okay. To answer your question I personally believe that the martians will end up luring the humans of Earth into a false sense of security. This is because we know after reading the first few chapters that these martians are very intelligent creatures due to the fact that they are capable of space travel. To go back up to the connections you made to “Lord of the Flies” I would have to disagree with what you said about the island creating a false sense of security. On the island in “Lord of the Flies” all of the boys had known that they should not wander off on their own and that they should stick together to survive, so it wasn’t really a false sense a security the island was giving off to kill the boys. It was probably the kid with the scars fault that he had wandered off when he got scared. So it is my belief that it wasn’t the false sense of security that the island was giving off that contributed to the killing of the boy with the scar, but rather the LACK of security that was ever present at their homes. What I mean by this is that by their age they had come to expect a certain amount of security whether it by family or friends, so I believe that since these boys were so used to feeling secure, when this security was taken away they didn’t act with enough caution.
February 10th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Erin Campbell
I would have to disagree with Sonam and agree with Taran’s statement. I think that the capsule is like the island. They were both items that the people had not experienced so their curiosity was built by them. If you put yourself in either situation, not realizing that there is danger most likely you would do the same thing. So yes the creatures do give a sense of false comfort at first.
On the other hand I think that this feeling disappears much faster than it did on the island. As soon as the capsule starts to open the fear inside the people starts to build.
So I guess I am going to contradict myself by saying that no the two items are not the same, but they do share common characteristics.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Colin Easter
While the novel can be related to “Lord of the Flies”, it is better to compare the sense of survival rather than the sense of comfort. The earth is island upon which the people will fight not only the martians but each other to survive. This is already evidenced by the man being pushed into the sand pit. Similarly, in “Lord of the Flies”, the boys had to defend themselves against each other and the tribe they weren’t in (Jack’s or Ralph’s). The beast could be compared to the martians and the people themselves at the same time. The sense of comfort was only present for the first hours in “War of the Worlds”. In “Lord of the Flies” it stayed for much longer. Thus, the survival theme connects more closely than the false comfort theme.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I think that everyone is interested in the island until they figure out what the island is all about and when everyone starts blieving in the beastie. In “War of the Worlds” the public is interested in the capsule until it is opened. So in both cases they believe the island and the capsul are good but then the find it to be bad.
I think that yes they will provide a sense of false comfort to the people, because they are so much more advanced they could easily take advantage of Earth.
Amber Jones
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Taran: Use paragraphs and watch out for small errors (sp and such). Also, demonstrate how this connection deepens your understanding of WotW.
Responders: Good job reading and responding to one another. Since you all responded well before the due date, I would have liked to see a continuation of the conversation. You don’t have to limit your responses to one. The more you respond to each other the better!