Shaun Ditzler WOTW Pd. 3 Connector
After being stuck alone in a house with the crazy curate for so many days, the author begins to lose his patience with him. The man has lost his sanity, his will to live, and is becoming a serious threat to both of them. This situation can be related to, yes, the Lord of the Flies. In Lord of the Flies, the boys turn to savagery when there is now one to control them and keep them from committing crimes. This is shown in two different ways in War of the Worlds.
The curate goes crazy when he is thrown into the chaos of the Martian attack because there is no longer anyone to tell him what to do or keep him in control. And after being with him for so many days, the narrator does something he would have never done in normal society; he kills the man.
On a much larger scale, the rest of England is also going insane. With the government out of the picture, there is no one to control the rest of them. This throws people into chaos. Crimes and other horrible deeds are committed by people who would have never done anything like that when there was something keeping them in line. Both of these classic books have this similar concept in them.
However, desperate times call for desperate measures, right? Or should people still try to be good citizens and work together? Considering both these perspectives, do you think that the narraor made the right decision when he killed the curate? Was there any other way, or was more death the only option?
-Shaun Ditzler
Category: Per 3 WotW Con 5 comments »
March 1st, 2009 at 7:12 pm
It’s hard to say. I believe that the narrator probably didn’t have to kill the curate in order to shut him up, and he didn’t mean to. But, when you think about it, the curate’s mind was gone. There was no way for the narrator to help him and, in a way, death sort of released him from his torment. It’s one of those ‘I can only know if I’m in that sort of situation’ moments.
It’s sort of like that ‘buzzer’ song that Mr. Shank made us listen to. Would you keep electrifying the person for money or would you stop and force yourself to live poorly.
Morally, I believe it’s not right to kill someone in order to look out for yourself. But if you’re in the narrator’s place, and your facing almost certain death and the end of the world, it’s very hard to judge between what is right and what is wrong. I don’t think death was the only option, but I believe it was the only option that was a sure fire way for the narrator to have a shot at surviving. It would have been better if the curate and narrator were able to work together and survive together though.
March 1st, 2009 at 7:36 pm
I agree…whoever this is.
-Ditz
March 1st, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I believe that the narrator made the right decision, but I don’t think that he approached the situation the right way. The narrator was looking out for himself. Obviously the curate was such a bother that it drove the narrator so far off the edge that he killed the man. However, I don’t know how else he would have handled the situation. He was facing life and death, and if the man was going to be in his way he couldn’t have that.
Agreeing with the person above, I have never been put in the situation that the narrator was in, and I hope that I never am. I don’t know the other options that the narrator would have had to choose from. If the narrator and the curate couldn’t have figured out the quirks i think it would have been much better off.
March 2nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I think that the narrator made the right descision. There was no help for the curate and even if the narrator would have left him there the man would have been found and killed by the martians. The way the narrator handled the situation was actually better for the curate than if the martians would have found him alive. He made his death quick and easy so the curate wouldn’t die from getting the blood sucked out of him.
I have to agree with everyone else on the fact that it is one of those moments where you have to be there to know if it was the right decision or not.
Kody Bell
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
yea sorry that was me, Paula, the first time