The War of the Worlds Reading Log
I read the exposition and started in the rising action of the story, which begins when the aliens commence their invasion. The setting is in early 20th century England, in a small town in the countryside. The point of view is first-person, as the writer is telling the story as if he is the main character. The main idea is something along the lines of "what would happen if Martians invaded the Earth?"
The only literary devices so far are irony and foreshadowing. From the beginning of the book, the author foreshadows the tragic events that will happen. An example of irony is how the main character talks to his wife about how they would surely defeat the Martians because they couldn't walk around, since the gravity on Earth is stronger than that of Mars, but then the humans get absolutely DOMINATED since the Martians somehow built mechs with no materials, while getting shelled.
Short summary:
An unnamed protagonist meets his friend, Ogilvy, who shows him some images of Mars through a telescope. They see some clouds of dust that the main character says look like gunpowder from a shot. A few days later, a strange metal pod crashes in a town near the main character's house and aliens come out and start attacking the bystanders and eventually the nearby town with invisible heat rays. The army arrives and attacks the aliens but cannot stop them from constructing GIANT ENEMY SPIDER - ahem, huge mechs. Meanwhile, the main character gets his wife away from the town they live in and then returns to see if the aliens were still alive.
In the rising action, the main character gets back home after seeing the aliens in their mechs and meets a soldier the second day. He and the soldier decide to go to Leatherhead, where the main character took his wife to get her away from the aliens. At a town along the way, they see the Martians once more, who attack the town. However, an artillery shell hits one of the mechs and headshots it, killing the Martian. The rest of the Martians leave and take their dead soldier with them back to their landing capsules. Later, the main character meets a cleric, and they depart together towards Leatherhead.
The main character is desperate to get away from the aliens, but he is also excited as he goes back to his hometown to see if the aliens are defeated yet
Continuing the rising action, the main character tells of his brother's experiences in London. He had heard of the Martians but was not so worried because of the false reports of them being unable to move. Later, he finds out that the Martians are attacking London with poison gas canisters that they fired at the city. He and most of the inhabitants manage to get away from the city and he saves two ladies from some ruffians trying to steal their cart and horse while on the way out of the city.
Meanwhile, the main character and the cleric see the Martians firing the poison gas canisters at some towns and at possible places where artillery could be stationed.
The mood in this section of the story is of fear and desperation, as many people are trampled in the streets, trying to run away from London as it is being attacked.
The poison gas released by the Martians is described as black and very thick, symbolizing death and destruction.
Continuing the rising action, the main character's brother and the two women he met continue fleeing away from London to the sea. On the way, they see more panicked people running away from the city. Some even get run over by carriages, like one person who had dropped some money on the ground and was trying to pick it up when he got hit by a carriage and died shortly thereafter. This image builds on the mood of desperation in the story. The main character's brother and the two women eventually reach the sea, where they board a small ship leaving towards the mainland. They see an ironclad warship engaging three Martians and managing to destroy two of them by ramming one and shooting the other at point-blank.
It's worth to mention that even pre-dreadnaught battleships in the 1890s, such as many of the ships that fought at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, would have been able to accurately hit a target on the shore, as their main weapons had an accurate range of ~5.68 miles and a maximum range of over 12 miles, where the Martian heat rays have a maximum range of a bit more than two miles, based on descriptions in the book.
The mood in this section is both fearful and desperate, like in the previous section, but there is also gladness and excitement as two Martians are destroyed. There is hope that the invaders would be defeated.
Continuing the rising action, the main character and the curate were hiding in a house from one of the Martian fighting machines when another of the landing pods lands near their house. They manage to observe the Martians over the course of several days, as the aliens manufacture some aluminum rods. They notice that the Martians have no arms or legs, just a bunch of tentacles attached to a round body, and mostly rely on their machines to move around. Furthermore, they also observe that the Martians do not eat, instead, they inject the blood of their victims into their bodies to stay nourished. After more than ten days, the curate goes insane and gets caught by the Martians. Later, the main character leaves the town after the Martians depart. He meets the soldier he met before, in his hometown, and they spend some time together before the main character goes off towards London by himself. There, he sees the city devastated and only sees three other people alive, but there are no Martians in the vicinity.
The mood in this section is fearful and desperate. The main character has no hope for the future, but the soldier does, and he envisions a day in which humanity will figure out how to use the alien technology to defeat the intruders.
In the climax, the main character is wandering about London and hears a strange noise. After a while, he sees a wrecked Martian machine and continued looking around London. Eventually, he comes to a large Martian camp which appears to be abandoned. He runs off after hearing some strange noises in the dark, and the next day, when he comes back, he finds that all the Martians are dead, killed by the bacteria they were exposed to from feeding on human blood and from being on Earth. Later in the falling action, he returns to his home in sadness after finding out that Leatherhead had been destroyed by the Martians, but meets his wife and cousins, who had managed to escape before the town was destroyed.
The conclusion of the story is that Earth has been saved, and they would not be surprised any more if the Martians would return and be able to deal with the threat before it became too much to handle.
The mood in this section is first fearful and then joyful as the main character finds out the aliens had been defeated, and his family was safe.
It's ironic that the Martians, with their massive machines that were described to tower over the trees, were defeated by the smallest of foes, the bacteria. Another irony is that the Martians were, in essence, killed by the very thing they had come here to seek, food and a hospitable environment.
There is also foreshadowing earlier in the story, when the main character mentions that the aliens might be in danger from Earth's bacteria while hiding in the ruined house and observing the aliens' movements.
H.G. Wells wrote this novel during the late years of the British industrial revolution, when many new machines were being invented, in both the industrial and military fields. This probably inspired the Martian machines described in the book.
Some themes in the book include fear of the unknown, an alien invasion, resilience, and survival.
