Martians in War of the Worlds
The images of the Martians in The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells and its film adaptation by Byron Haskin are political and social allegories for their day. In the novel, Wells symbolized the injustices of Imperial Britain with the gruesome image of the parasitic Martians. Whereas, Haskin, who directed The War of the Worlds during the beginning of the Cold War, wanted to glorify America as the ultimate world power and therefore made his Martians physically weak and foolish looking. These two images symbolize the political views that each author wishes to convey. The similarities are that both men portray the Martians as physically weak beings, but at the same time mental giants, both use giant machines armed with heat rays to kill instead of brute force, and in the end both were killed by viruses. The political commentary can be seen in the Martian’s invasion tactics, technical superiority, appearance, and their physical handicaps. Wells’s Martians were a symbol warning the British of the dangers of the harsh treatment of their colonies. The novel portrays the Martians as advanced parasitic monsters, traveling from their world to ours in hopes of consuming our bodies for food. The artilleryman displays his fear of this w
The Martians were also technologically dependent. Without their machines they were physically weak. The Martians could have been run back from wince they came by a mob armed with boards with nails in them. H.G. Wells noticed a trend in England of people relying more and more on manufactured goods and technology. Seeing this trend, Wells predicted in his book that sooner or later England would be more technologically advanced than the rest of this world, and he showed that in his image of the Martians. Upon further inspection of their appearance, the Martians have skinny tentacles coming out of their mouth. “In a group round the mouth were sixteen slender, almost whiplike tentacles.”(Wells 75) These tentacles symbolize Britain’s ability to project its military power. This view of the Martians parallels the mercantilist attitude held by the British at that time. India was at the time, under British control. The British used India for its vast natural resources and then left it. Along with this image of monsters, the novel portrays the Martians as Vampires. “They took the fresh, living blood of other creatures, and injected it into their own veins.”(Wells 75) Wells found Britain’s colonial policy cruel and immoral. Like the vampires of folklore or the Martians in this book, Britain exploited her colonies of their riches, food, and people. This view parallels the British treatment of her Colonies. Britain treated her colonists like slaves, sucking the blood out of the land, leaving the colony starving and poor. The symbol of the Martians in
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Approximate Word count = 1055
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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