War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells Essays -- War Worlds H.G. Wells Essays

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells Homo-Superior? War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells is a fiction story written about war and mankind’s coming of age. It is also a philosophical novel with many deep meanings underlying the shallow looking one-hundred-eighty-eight page book. The subject of this novel is Science Fiction and there are not many that can even compete with Wells in terms of how superior his word descriptions are. He simply does wonders with the imagination of the reader. Obviously the whole book is about the struggle mankind faces, but it is not always with aliens, they are actually more of a good way to represent what Wells really believed. He believed man is dominant, yet should remember how big the universe is and that the possibility of life far more intelligent than ours is very great. The narrator, who is also the main character tells War of the Worlds in first person. He describes everything from the man’s denial, to the invasion, the battles, and the aftermath. In the beginning he discusses the possibility of other life forms existing. When the aliens invade they do not communicate, just organize and destroy all resistance and population centers. The author journeys along all of England fleeing the invaders and always being updated from various people about the news. The climax comes when he walks into a town to find all the aliens dead from bacteria, and the denouement is when he finds his wife. The movie â€Å"Independence Day† is the best way to describe this story to someone who has never read the book before. The two are strikingly similar. In both the aliens invade without warning and destroy everything with their superior technology. People know about the aliens before they arrive ahead of time in each story, but do nothing because of denial and public hysteria. The study and autopsy of aliens are described in the two. There are differences though. There are no heroes in the book, but in the movie there are. Our technology is useless in the book and in the movie it wins it for us. In a sense the endings are the same because a computer virus is what causes the aliens’ shields to go down in the movie and biological viruses kill the aliens in the book. Still when I think about it, â€Å"Independence Day† is the best way to modernize the story. Pre World War One England is the setting for the story. It fits ... ... the stupidity and courage of men. He did a great job of doing both. This book is really a classic because so many people know about it and still read it today, and it is over a hundred years old! It reminds me of how the U.S is today. Sure we are the greatest nation on the planet, however we still need to be reminded that we do not control everyone. We should be more humble and that is how the author felt as well. All the time I see on the news how people rebel and complain about stuff. When it comes down to it they don’t do jack! They just want to bitch about how the system cheats them. There were characters in the book like this in the novel too. The most significant thing to me in the whole book, and I’m sure it is to most readers too, is the fact that germs killed the aliens. Not some secret weapon, or a hero, but the every day cold. This really humbles man. In the end there is hope. The hope that man finally understands that he is not so great and how lucky he can be. Hope that we will learn from our mistakes and take them to heart so that if this happens again, we will be ready. So the one question remains, and I leave it up to you†¦are we Homo-Superior?