The War of the Worlds (Criticism)

Criticism

David Kelly

Kelly is an instructor of literature and creative writing at two schools in Illinois. In this essay, Kelly examines the role that is played in the novel by the two women that the narrator's brother meets while fleeing London.

The early novels that H. G. Wells wrote are remembered for infusing a groundbreaking sense of realism into unlikely situations, all the while holding fast to the principles of science. The War of the Worlds, in particular, is considered as "realistic" as a book can be when there are slimy tentacled creatures cutting down whole countrysides with ray guns. The book is apocalyptic, showing a very convincing vision of how the human race could quite conceivably end. It dismisses the most dominant factors of our society, presuming that they would be unable to rise to the kind of challenge presented by a Martian invasion.

The novel follows its vision of mankind's defeat through until the end, when, in the depth of his despair, its unnamed narrator finds out that the invasion has been defeated, mostly by a fluke. From there, things pick up: he returns to his home, he is reunited with his wife, international aid packages arrive for the displaced and there is hope that such an invasion could not work as well a second time without the element of surprise. In the end, though, the sense of hope is tinged with the kind of fear that any war survivor would harbor, having once seen how easily the life he knows can collapse in on itself.

Even with the final reconciliations, this is an almost unrelentingly bleak story. Wells seems to be saying, as he was to throughout his writings, that humanity is nothing but a cog in the greater machine of science. This message comes across in the narrator's tone, in the losses that the world encounters, and even in the unexpected way in which the Martians die.

There is, though, in the middle of this dark story, a small episode that reflects the romantic ideals of courage, love, and mystery. As the world faces the destruction of London — possibly the worst imaginable catastrophe for an Englishman — the story's focal character at that point, the narrator's brother, becomes involved with two interesting women. Their story is not by any means adequately examined, but the fact that they appear in this novel at all opens a window to a worldview that the rest of the book labors hard to shut out.

That this ray of hope should come to the narrator's brother should be no surprise. The narrator's story has no place for romance. He is presented as a moral pragmatist, a philosopher who sees the doom and destruction and, like the true philosopher that he is, considers its place in his understanding of the world. The fact that the book gives readers a happy ending when he is reunited with his wife does nothing to negate the fact that that he does not think of her while he is out on the road, struggling for survival. His rationalism is what makes him turn the others whom he encounters into symbols for society's doomed framework. The curate, for example, stands for religion, and when the narrator sees him crumble psychologically he realizes that faith is not strong enough to offer solace when the pressure is truly on. The artilleryman seems to have a better idea for how to cope with humanity's destruction, an intricate plan that includes long-term and short-term goals and an abandonment of any hope for comfort in the foreseeable future. After mouthing his theories, though, he quits work and digs in to the comfort of cigars, whiskey, and cards. The narrator simply walks away from him, an act even more disdainful than bashing the curate's head in. These two odd, dead-end relationships fit perfectly into the mood of the rest of the narrator's tale, in which humanity is beaten by the invaders at every turn.

Critics have noted that the section of the book that breaks away from the narrator's story to tell the story of his brother — Chapters 14, 16, and 17 — show a weakness in Wells's ability as a novelist. This break does not appear to be the result of any overall narrative strategy but is instead just a matter of convenience: it enables Wells to keep with his narrator from the discovery of the first alien through the invasion's end, while showing what happened in the crowded metropolis at the same time. Certainly, there must be some way to do this that would be more grounded in the story, but most readers seem to feel that it is worth a little cheating in the story telling if that is what it takes to work the destruction of London into the book. Generally, then, the brother's story is considered a small, forgivable misstep, and little is said about it.

And, in fact, this break in the narrative continuity hardly makes any difference at all. The narrator and his brother are barely distinguishable from one another. Neither shows any independent characteristics, other than the roles they have to play in the book: one is a philosopher and the other a medical student, and both are motivated by staying alive. The most important differences between them seem to be those that are implied, rather than stated: the brother is younger, and unmarried. These qualify him to be a romantic hero in a way that the narrator could not.

On the road out of London, the narrator's brother stops to aid two women who are being accosted by some thugs. He is injured in the skirmish, and they take him into the carriage that he helped save for them. This act is, in itself, remarkable: it does come after he has risked his life for them, but it also comes during the exodus, while anyone slowed down is likely to be killed. The fact that they take him in shows two distinct traits. First, there is a sense of indebtedness, which the narrator himself encounters when he meets up with the artilleryman the second time; if he had not helped the man earlier, he may have been shot. Second, there is the need for protection, in a traditional gender-role sense. These women, traveling with a gun, a carriage, and money, know that they will need someone to save them from looters.

The two women are drawn as opposites. The first, Mrs. Elphinstone, is one of the few characters in the book to be given a name, and certainly the only one to be named after the invasion begins. This can be contrasted with the main characters that the narrator meets, who are referred to by their social functions, curate and artilleryman. She, in turn, frequently talks about another named character, George, who is presumably Mr. Elphinstone. Her function in the novel is to become hysterical, unable to keep her wits about her in what are, admittedly, trying circumstances. While there might seem no reason to dwell upon one hysterical person during the evacuation of a city of millions, Mrs. Elphinstone does serve to provide a clean contrast to her sister-in-law, who provides the book's romantic center.

Mrs. Elphinstone is short and dressed in white, and her sister-in-law is slim and dark complexioned; she is nervous, while her sister-in-law is "astonishingly quiet and deliberate"; she speaks out loud to George as if he were there, while her sister-in-law has the present situation well in hand. The sister-in-law, who is never given a name, also has a pistol, which she does not hesitate to use. And she has the courage to tell the narrator's brother, "We have money," at a time when the road is filled with thieves.

Mrs. Elphinstone's sister-in-law, George's sister, is the most unique character in the book. She cuts a dashing figure. She can be vicious, but she can be kind. One has to wonder how she turned up in the middle of a story that has all of the rest of the race bowing down to the inevitable or, like the artilleryman, too lazy to resist.

The story of these two women is woven with romantic imagery. The threatening highwaymen and the out-of-control horses are conventions of Victorian bodice-rippers. That in itself would make their appearance unusual, but one could see it, like the appearance of the curate, as Wells's commentary on a particular social convention. But, within the dashing romance, Wells turns the convention on its head by giving the sister-in-law characteristics that were at that time traditionally left to men. She not only produces the pistol, but she fires it without flinching; she takes the horse's reigns after the narrator's brother enters the carriage; and, besides, she has the smoldering dark looks that one expects of a male character from a Brontë novel. Although the narrator's brother ends up as the leader of their small party, as is evidenced by the fact that he is the one who pays the passage of the three onto a boat, Mrs. Elphinstone's sister-in-law is still an independent spirit.

What this character meant to Wells is unclear. Probably, like the entire shift to the narrator's brother's perspective, she just materialized while he was writing and seemed like the right thing to do. He did not even give her a name, although in this section of the book he was naming characters. He did, however, give her a striking presence, making her the type of woman who is a match for a young medical student like the narrator's brother. The reader knows that the brother survived to tell the tale of his escape to the narrator, but nothing more is said of Mrs. Elphinstone's sister-in-law. She is just a strong-willed woman amongst a mood of general panic, and as such she gives the novel a romantic flair that it shows nowhere else. In that way, the brief interlude with the dark lady changes the book's entire meaning.

Source: David Kelly, Critical Essay on The War of the Worlds, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005.

What Do I Read Next?

• Readers interested in reading more of Wells's work can find this novel and First Men in the Moon (1901), The Invisible Man (1897), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Time Machine (1895) and several science fiction short stories all collected in a box set entitled Science Fiction Classics of H. G. Wells (2001) from Dover Thrift Editions.
• Before Wells, French author Jules Verne was considered to be the top science fiction writer of the nineteenth century. Verne's novels have stood the test of time. While The War of the Worlds might be looked at as the prototype for all sci-fi stories about alien invasions, Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) has influenced an entire category of subterranean fiction.
• Ray Bradbury's 1950 novel The Martian Chronicles tells the reverse of this story, as humans colonize Mars to escape a destroyed Earth and impose themselves on Martian culture.
• Wells's life, spanning from the Victorian period to World War II, was one of the most interesting in twentieth century literature. One of the best biographies of him is H. G. Wells: Desperately Mortal (1986) by David C. Smith.
• The H. G. Wells Scrapbook, edited by Peter Haining, is organized, as its title says, as a scrap-book — it collects various bits of material related to Wells's life, including possible sources of inspiration, newspaper clips, and artwork from and inspired by his books. It was published in 1978 by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.