Period 1 War of the Worlds Illuminator
Colin Easter
At the end of the first page, H. G. Wells makes what seems to be a sarcastic comment. ”The planet Mars, I scarcely need to remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world.” This is after a serious sounding opening. I chose this quote because it was interesting that he put in a sarcastic comment after the previously mentioned opening. Is he trying to give the novel an unserious tone? Perhaps he is trying to ridicule scientists because of their almost meaningless statements? He might just be trying to say that the novel is non-fiction, but why would he do it in this manner?
Category: Illuminator, Per 1 WotW Illum, Per 1 wotw IL 5 comments »
February 11th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I think this quote is forshadowing that they will be unserious about the capsule before it is opened.
Amber
February 11th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Erin Campbell
I do not believe that the author is trying to create an unserious tone at all. I think the authors purpose for this quote is to restate the information about Mars while conveying it in a normal human’s point of view. Since the existence of martians is not known, people seem to have a humorous feeling towards mars. So the purpose is not to make the book seem like a joke, but to convey the story from what people thought to believe true.
February 11th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Sonam
Well, Easter Bunny I believe that it was a good choice to use this sarcasm after a serious opening for the following reasons. First off if the book had more of a serious tone then the story might have seemed too real and might have ended up frightening the readers. Another reason why this was a good idea is because it helps to set the setting of the story. What I mean by this is after coming out a hard or serious situation someone might joke about it to make it seem more trivial. By this information we can tell that the story is being told after the whole ordeal with the martians from mars, and it is always important to know the setting of a story. To disagree with Erin, I believe that the author is trying to make the book seem like a joke. The reason why I think this is because if you have bad memories you don’t want to look back on them with a serious perspective, you would normally like to look back at those bad memories and contemplate how things could have been worse and how you were lucky. I don’t mean that the author is trying to give the book a humorous tone, what I mean is that the author is trying to make the story less serious so as to keep it entertaining for the reader with just the right amount of action and suspense.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I would have to agree with Erin, he is not trying to sound sarcastic, he is just trying to inform you. This also makes the novel seem more realistic. Now that I think of it this could be a clue to a downfall of the martians. If they recive half the sunlight and heat they would not be used to our heat and light. Just think if you were to go to Mexico you would probably sweat the second you get outside because you would not be used to the heat. Now imagine if you were to travel millions of miles. They probably die because of the heat. So I would have to say that he is not trying to seem less serious he is just (possibly) constructing the storyline to his novel
Taran
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Colin: More.
Amber: More