The War of the Worlds

Description:

Theme:

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, has a theme of Religion, its presence and absence, and the notion of a higher power.

Summary:

It is about a fictional invasion of Southern England by Martians. It deals with the in/ability to retain faith in the wake of devastation and catastrophe. The military is powerless against the Martians’ superior weapons, and many people die. The Martians are eventually killed by bacterial infection.

Famous Quotes:

“I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel … the fear and empire of man had passed away.”

“This isn’t a war… It never was a war, any more than there’s war between men and ants.”

“The fear I felt was no rational fear, but a panic terror not only of the Martians but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do. Once I had turned, I did not dare look back.”

″ One man … had contrived to telegraph to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed all over the world.”

“It ain’t no murder killing beasts like that.”

“He had swept it out of existence, as it seemed, without any provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness of power.”

“You are scared out of your wits! What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Do you think God had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent, man.”

“By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.”

“The Martians—dead! … slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.”

“It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they did.”

“The ordinary traffic had been stopped, I believe, in order to allow of the passage of troops and guns to Chertsey, and I have heard since that a savage struggle occurred for places in the special trains that were put on at a later hour.”

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