H.G. Wells and War of the Worlds

             Wells between 1895 and 1897, there are many subplots; the submission of men, the inhumanity of imperialism and the horrors of war. The novel is powerful, touching on the fears which people about the unknown and themselves. Wells masterfully reminds his readers that it's mere conceit for humans to believe that we're the only intelligent beings in the universe and points to the possibility that it's our own fears that prevent us from believing. When aliens attack earth, humans begin to turn against each other, each one fighting for survival as they hide in farmhouses and woods.
             With the clever use of foreshadowing, Wells lets his readers in on the fact that the martians, in the end, will be destroyed. In Chapter 2, the narrator of the novel explains that: "Micro-organisms, which cause so much disease and pain on earth, have either never appeared upon Mars or Martian sanitary science eliminated them ages ago. A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of human life, consumption, cancers, tumors and such morbidities, never enter the scheme of their life.".
             The narrator describes the human battles that were present in the late 1800's; victory and defeat, man versus machine. In the beginning, the martians don't seem very threatening because they are small and weak. However, they reveal their power when they climb into tall machines that can shoot rays of heat, towering high above the ground. The narrator first comes across one of the massive machines; he cannot believe how it responds to the Martian. In Chapter 10, Wells states, "it.
             was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about.