Pd. 3 WotW post 4 Shaun Ditzler
For our final post about War of the Worlds, i chose to study the narrator again and see how he has changed since the start of the novel. It seems that seeing all the death and destruction wrought by the Martians has definitely changed him, as it would have done to any person. In the beginning, he was a very scientific, logical man who was intrigued and excited by the happenings on Mars and on Earth. Now that he has been through so much for his survival, however, he has lost his interest in science and become more of an emotionally based person. Throughout the chapters, we are given an insight to his thoughts and we see that he has become much more of an introspective person.
“For that moment I touched an eomotion beyond the common range of men, yet one that the poor brutes we dominate know only too well. I felt as a rabbit might feel returning to his borrow and suddenly confronted by the work of a dozen navvies digging the foundations of a house. I felt the first inkling of of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that opressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away.”
This quote expresses an overwhelming emotion that the narrator felt as he emerged from his hiding place. What he saw that made him feel this was not so much the amount of destruction, but the way the Martians have alienated the planet to make it their own. It no longer looked like a place on Earth, but a place inhabited by some strange, extraterrestrial beings.
I think that this is one of the major things thar affected the way the narrator changed in the final portion of the novel. He had almost no hope left and hardly even wished to live anymore until he discovered the dead Martians in London. This gave him hope for humanity and allowed him to continue on and eventually return home and find his wife.
In the end, it turned out that humanity did survive. They outlasted the Martians and were able to reclaim their planet. However, this was only due to a microscopical phenomenon out of their own control. “By the toll of a billion death man had bought his birthright of the Earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty. For neither do men live or die in vain.” This is also true of the narrator. He only survived because of instances out of his control. Whether it was because of deterences to the Martians from the military, or ignorance on the their end he was able to live. I also think that this book makes you think on both sides of the “war”. Yes, the Martians are trying to wipe us out, but they are doing it to save themselves. Humanity would do the same thing. And when you think about it, we do the same thing as the Martians everyday on Earth. We see ourselves as greater than the rest of the life on our planet, so we use it or kill it for our own good. We are like mindless little ants to the Martians, but since we treat creatures on our planet the same way, are the Martians really in the wrong? Are we just blameless victims to a force far greater than ours? Or is there another side? What if, as a young boy sprays an anthill with a hose, the ants are thinking the same thing that we are; “why?”
Category: Per 3 WotW CW 9 comments »
March 8th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Whoah. Holy in-depth! I think that you hired someone else to do your blog. Haha.
I really like these questions. I don’t nessarily think that we treat creatures like this, but other human beings (human beans?). There is a wrong, but that wrong is different for everyone. It depends on the background that you have grown up on. People come from different backgrounds (such as different religions) and different rules. I don’t think that the Martians were in the wrong. They were just trying to look out for themselves. I don’t think that they meant any harm (well maybe a little), they just wanted to find a place where they could live and start another colony.
If you really think about it, everyone does the same thing that the Martians, just not the the extreme. A majority of humans live in a house or apartment and they just didn’t pop out of nowhere. Trees were sacraficed to accomadate our needs. And animals, we kill eat animals so that we can eat, but animals kill other animals to eat also. We are all guilty of doing things to make sure that we can live. It’s a way of life, everyone does it. I don’t believe that the Martians were neccessarily the bad guys, they were just trying to look out for themselves.
Look at the movie “Wall-e”. Earth got bad so they went to the moon to live. Earth wasn’t satisfying their needs so they just abonded it. I think that the Martians did the same thing. If we are in danger we look out for ourselves.
Wow. I am almost in tears. Haha.
Abbey
March 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
I don’t agree with you Abbey about how the Martians were just looking out for themselves and trying to start a new colony. You have to remember that when they eat they just suck the blood out of their victims while they are still alive. Yes I know we still eat other creatures but at least they are dead(usually). But my point is that the Martians were hunting, they weren’t here to start fresh. The book says that the Martians had silicon based creatures(made in a laboratory) that had all the same functions as humans. They were definately in the wrong in coming to Earth. They had no reason to come to Earth. Now we aren’t just blameless victims in this. We as humans would probably do the same thing IF and only IF humanity was being threatened. Otherwise we would not do anything like that.
Kody Bell
March 8th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Wow, this post is amazing Shaun!!!
I think we are a little bit of both; the ants and the Martians. When, as you said, a boy sprays an anthill with a hose, what do the ants do? Obviously they try to run. But other ants, soldier ants, try to attack and bite the attacker and save whats left of their home. Their resistance may be futile, but they attack anyway because it’s their home. This is how humans relate to the ants.
We are like the Martians in the sense that we do think of ourselves as higher than the other inhabitants of Earth. We kill animals for food, we take away their homes in nature to build homes for ourselves, and we use them to experiment on anything from shampoos to medicine. Many people don’t give a second thought about what we do because they think these creatures are lower than us; they exist only for our benefit. The point is we do these things in order to survive, just like what the Martians are doing when they attack Earth.
So you see, we are like ants to the Martians; mindless, weak, unfit to have such a good life on Earth. But we are also like the Martians themselves in that we will do anything it takes in order to survive.
March 8th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
ahhh sorry ^Paula^
March 8th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Okay……. What does that have to do with anything?
Kody
March 8th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Thanks guys! Good responses
-Ditz
March 8th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Actually, what Paula said was basically my point exactly
March 8th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Okay
Kody
March 8th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Kody…two words. GROW UP!