H.G. Wells Research Paper
What if an alien species invaded earth? What if mankind could go forward, backward, and even pause time? H.G. Wells’ novels are very convincing of these incidents. His writings are very detailed, and he has predicted many future gadgets in his books. H.G. Wells converted from Christian to atheist to open up his mind, and become a more skilled science fiction author. From beginning to end his books keep the audience appealed and wanting more. Wells was a firm believer in science fiction. H.G. Wells believed that some topics of his writings would become true, which he proves in both The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, that war had the potential to end the human race, and that humans and animals were much alike.
“Science fiction was made popular in the 1920’s, if not invented in the 1920’s” (Sterling, The world of sciece fiction). Hugo Gernsac had put science fiction on the map. H.G. Wells made science fiction what it is today. Authors of this specific genre mainly attempt writing about new technological advances and gadgets. The authors usually include a new species, or disease trying to destroy the human race. Many science fiction works also include an alien invasion on earth, such as War of the Worlds. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, a few comets were falling to earth. This scared many people across the globe. These comets inspired some authors to start writing in the genre of what is known as science fiction. Science fiction, or “sci- fy” has become a very popular genre. From literature around the world, to movies in Hollywood, science fiction has swept the world and is becoming even more popular today than ever before. There is even a television channel dedicated to noting but sci-fi movies!...
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.... He firmly believed that a time travel was possible, and that a time machine would one day be invented. He also believed in alien life form. Wells saw no possibility in humans being the only life form in the vast universe. He was not very fond of war. Wells saw war as pointless, and demeaning. Wells believed that mankind would one day destroy itself from war. He had lost faith in society and human evolution after the first World War. Wells had also felt like mankind
was nothing more than animals. Humans were ants compared to other life forms in his book, war of the worlds. Humans were no better than the animals. Humans and animals are all part of earth, and are all one species. H.G. Wells thought some topics of his literature works would become true, he felt like war had the capability of ending the human race, and that humans were nothing more than animals.
Some writers would tend to avoid controversy in their writing, to avoid offending or limiting their audience. Many choose to write brilliantly designed worlds, times or characters, that simply take a reader on a journey. They can use traits of realistic, non-realistic, and semi-realistic fiction. An effective storyteller can create plots, characters and settings which involve themes based on historical events, or mythology to present their tale. Classic themes within the science fiction genre; is this classic blending of scientific and technological facts. Then it is their job to take you to a place or time that shows their finely crafted potential situation and events.
Literature and film have always held a strange relationship with the idea of technological progress. On one hand, with the advent of the printing press and the refinements of motion picture technology that are continuing to this day, both literature and film owe a great deal of their success to the technological advancements that bring them to widespread audiences. Yet certain films and works of literature have also never shied away from portraying the dangers that a lust for such progress can bring with it. The modern output of science-fiction novels and films found its genesis in speculative ponderings on the effect such progress could hold for the every day population, and just as often as not those speculations were damning. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis are two such works that hold great importance in the overall canon of science-fiction in that they are both seen as the first of their kind. It is often said that Mary Shelley, with her authorship of Frankenstein, gave birth to the science-fiction novel, breathing it into life as Frankenstein does his monster, and Lang's Metropolis is certainly a candidate for the first genuine science-fiction film (though a case can be made for Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune, his film was barely fifteen minutes long whereas Lang's film, with its near three-hour original length and its blending of both ideas and stunning visuals, is much closer to what we now consider a modern science-fiction film). Yet though both works are separated by the medium with which they're presented, not to mention a period of over two-hundred years between their respective releases, they present a shared warning about the dangers that man's need fo...
Ida Barnett Wells was born a slave on July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She was the oldest child of eight children for her parents. Approximately six months after Ida B. Wells was conceived, African American slaves were ordered to be free by the Union, thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. However, since Ida Wells’ family resided in Mississippi, they still were facing racial prejudices and were confided by discriminatory rules and practices (pbs.org, 2002).
In H.G. Wells War of the Worlds the humans’ instinct to survive overcomes threats to their existence.
Obviously the whole book is about the struggle mankind faces, but it is not always about 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.
The Martians in the book The War Of The Worlds that was written by H. G. Wells were on the quest to Earth for resources to help them survive. At first landing and reading their spherical vehicles that were armed with both a heat ray gun and smoke gun, began to lay waste to mankind. Throughout the book, it is from the point of view of the narrator and what he experiences and sees on the Martians destruction of the world he knows. While Earth gives as much defense as they can, it cannot stand up against the great power of the Martians great vehicle’s destructive weapons. Towards the end of the book, mankind resorts to hiding in the shadows of this deadly terror and like the narrator, in a hole. Several days pass until the narrator comes out of his hole to see that the alien force has been eradicated by a bacteria that their body’s immune system was not able to save them.
Ida B. Wells born in Holly Springs, Mississippi on July 16, 1862 and died March
[Verne is acknowledged as one of the world's first and most imaginative modern science fiction writers. His works reflect nineteenth-century concerns with contemporary scientific innovation and its potential for human benefit or destruction. In the following excerpt from an interview with Gordon Jones, he commends the imaginative creativity with which Wells constructs his scientific fantasies and stresses the difference between Wells's style and his own.]
Darko Suvin defines science fiction as "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device" (Suvin 7-8) is a fictional "novum . . . a totalizing phenomenon or relationship" (Suvin 64), "locus and/or dramatis personae . . . radically or at least significantly" alternative to the author's empirical environment "simultaneously perceived as not impossible within the cognitive (cosmological and anthropological) norms of the author's epoch" (Suvin viii). Unlike fantasy, science fiction is set in a realistic world, but one strange, alien. Only there are limits to how alien another world, another culture, can be, and it is the interface between those two realms that can give science fiction its power, by making us look back at ourselves from its skewed perspective.
When Wells was writing The War Of The Worlds, there was a huge rush in
During the late Victorian Britain, H.G. Wells became a literary spokesperson for liberal optimism and social reform. His scientific knowledge and literary capabilities led him to be one of the fore fathers of modern science fiction. In his novel The Time Machine, Wells, knowledgeable on the teachings of Charles Darwin and those of the Fabian Society, attempts to warn society that the brutality of capitalism and the plight of the laborer are not dealt with through social reforms then humanity will drive itself to extinction.
The genre of what is called science fiction has been around since The Epic of Gilgamesh (earliest Sumerian text versions BCE ca. 2150-2000). The last 4000 years has evolved science fiction and combined it with all categories of genres comprising action, comedy, horror, drama, and adventure in many different ways. From chest bursting aliens, to robot assassins sent back in time science fiction has successfully captured the imagination of nearly everyone that has been introduced to it. The movies Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Independence Day are both examples of films created with the idea of advanced life existing outside the boarders of our own world. The foundation for each film in view of how extraterrestrial life will affect human affairs, however are very different.
“Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn't exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible”, said Ray Bradbury, the author of the short story, “The Sound Of Thunder”. He used these principles of science fiction to create a story composed of a time machine’s and its passengers’ journey into prehistoric times. Once there, Eckels, along with his fellow hunters and guides, found what they were searching for. As they followed the metal path, their game approached, a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The group shot the monster down but not without consequence. The severe thrill of the hunt caused Eckels to step off the path, resulting in an altered history. After realizing what has become of their reality, the outraged safari guide shot Eckels, bringing an end to Eckels’s life and Ray Bradbury’s short story. In "The Sound Of Thunder", Ray Bradbury used the science fiction elements of the future time setting, importance of science, and problem.
This brings me to one of Wells' most important ideas that he wanted to tell his readers. That was the idea of vivisection or cloning of humans and animals. In todays world we are trying to control evolution by furthering our studies into cloning. He was right about his expectations of future societies and his ideas about how scientific advancements would affect our world. It was different because when this book was published it got horrific reviews for being too outlandish with its views on society. I think that if the book was published today it would be raved as a good warning for all the cloning scientists. Tod...
...God in this future except when something new being fear and uncertainty comes up and the time traveler feels legitimately in danger. The topics Wells chooses to discuss are very relevant and except for the physical depiction of the creatures in the future, the issue of the lower class being oppressed and revolting against the upper class and especially the meaning of life are large issues that have and probably will come to life in to future. H.G. Wells’s bleak depiction of the future through The Time Machine is one with many warnings and an almost Marxist view against capitalism and its downsides. H.G. Wells chooses to include a symbol of hope through the fragile and tender white flowers, a symbol of hope to human kind to be encouraged about the fact that wherever life may lead human kind, that there is always hope and this is a very plausible outcome for mankind.