The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

In the novel The War Of The Worlds, there is a constant feeling of

terror and dread, which is heavily influenced by the Victorian sense

of anxiety and worry about the world around them and their sudden rise

to almost absolute power. Wells manipulates the culture of the time

and so creates a novel which preys upon their underlying feelings of

anxiety and resentment of the people they conquered. Having said this,

there is an argument which can be created to challenge this view,

which states that HG Wells' ideas cannot have the same effect on

modern audiences as they did on Wells' contemporaries.

When Wells was writing The War Of The Worlds, there was a huge rush in

technology to create machines that could replace the jobs of men and

revolutionise Britain industrially and socially. This created an

anxiety based on the “machine over man” worry. For once Man wasn't

leading Natural Selection; there was something perhaps more powerful

than Man himself. This can be seen in the Martians' total dependence

on their machines that the narrator sees from the broken house - “I

had to convince myself that this was indeed a machine with a Martian

at the helm”.

Another, perhaps more immediate worry for Great Britain was the

situation with Europe being on the brink of a major war. A matter

particularly pertinent to Britain was the naval race, and Wells

alludes to this in the book, with the Martians secretly planning a

great attack to cripple Earth reflecting the Germans secretly building

a huge navy to rival Britain's, and invade. Britain's navy was

previously thought to be infallible, but the challenge by G...

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...; although the

idea is frightening, lasers are somewhat clichéd today and the modern

audience has seen the premise before. Another reason modern horror

fans may not be scared by Wells' book is because of the execution and

his descriptions. Wells' style is subtle, building tension and unease.

Most popular horror is based around shocking the audience; they

wouldn't want to wait around for the cylinder to unscrew, for example,

and coming back to the heat-ray: if the victim just vanishes, people

wouldn't be scared. If they were more verbosely described as being

having third degree burns and being reduced to the bare bone, people

would be more engaged. I think modern audiences are more impatient

than Wells' contemporaries, and to a modern audience The War Of The

Worlds isn't a frightening book, but more an interesting book.