War of the Worlds Flashcards
became not a man -> child
Chapter 5 - The Heat Ray
‘Such an extraordinary effect in unmanning me it had that I ran weeping silently as a child might do’
- POWER OF MARTIANS, HUMAN NAIVEITY
- CONT: VICTORIAN GENDER ROLES
- simile ‘as a child ‘ - shows the fear presented
- ‘unmanning’ and ‘child’ - transported back in time, all experience and knowledge is gone
- same point accentuated by ‘might’ doesnt know anymore
Narrator
the sword of the gods
Chapter 5 - The Heat Ray
‘Sweeping around swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat’
- SPEED, TECHNOLOGY, MARTIAN POWER
- CONT: Predicted lasers
- ‘slow and steady’ contrast to human slow and steady ‘swiftly and steadily’ - showing Martians are better and more advanced
- ‘Invisible, Inevitable sword of heat’ - almost god-like, unnatural, out of this world
- ‘sword’ - medieval, no words to describe it
Narrator
gold bite
CHapter 16 - Fall of London
‘the man with the gold twisted his head round and bit the wrist’
- CAPITALISM, GREED, VIC SOCIETY
- CONT: Social Darwinism
- ‘bit’ - animalistic verb showing breakdown into every man for himslef (Darwin + Capitalism)
- ‘with the gold’ - key identifier is money showing focus of Victorian Society
- ‘twisted’ - contortion, showing unnaturalness and animalism of his actions
Narrators Brother
orchid man value
Chapter 12 - The Orchid Man (wont abandon his orchids )
‘ I was explainin’ these is vallyble’
- VICTORIAN CLASS, NAIVE HUMANS
- ‘explainin’’ and ‘vallyable’ contrast, one shows knowledge, but at the same time he cannot pronounce properly, represents the human arrogance at the time
- narrator writes the phonetic spelling to show his class above the man
Narrator
colonisation parallel
Chapter 12 - The Artilleryman
‘Its bows and arrows against the lightning’
- MARTIAN POWER
- CONT: IMPERIALISM - how the natives felt
- ‘bows and arrows’ - primitive contrasted to ‘lightning’ - out of this world godly
- paralell to colonisation
Artilleryman
tricolon of speed
Chapter 11 - Artilleryman
‘Just like the parade it had been a minute before - then stumble,bang,swish!
- SPEED, ONOMATOPOEIA
- CONT: VICTORIAN ARROGANCE
- ‘parade’ - symbol of Victorian power, disintegrated in ‘a minute’
- shows the speed of the attack
- tricolon of ‘stumble, bang,swish’ emphasises rapidity and loud noise
Artilleryman
slain by the midgest
Book 2 Chapter 3
‘slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria…slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon the earth
- HUMAN + MARTIAN SMALLNESS, SMALL MOTIF
- CONT: DARWINISM REJECTION
- ‘man’s devices had failed’ - human arrogance is gone
- ‘God’ - reference to higher in contrast of beliefs of the times
- ‘slain’ - heroic, old, verb - repeated
empasihes the unlikeliness of the bacteria slaying
- ‘bacteria’ - smallest thing defeats the largest reversal of the whole book
Narrator looking at slain martians in London
man vs antz
Book 2 - rants about his planned society
‘It never was a war, any more than there’s a war between man and ants’
-MOTIF OF SMALL + INSIGNIFICANT, POWER OF MARTIANS, LNK TO END OF THE BOOK (bacteria win)
-‘man and ants’ - juxtaposition of size to show incredulity of war
‘ants’ - belittles humans
LNK - Infusoria under a microscope
Artilleryman
artilleryman society selection
Book 2 - ranting about his society
‘We can’t have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die… It’s a sort of disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race’
- CAPITALISM, DARWINISM (Eugenics), Opp. of curate (logical vs emotional)
- ‘taint’ - poisioning, cancer connotations
- ‘weak + silly’ contrasted to ‘ have to die’ - extreme measure
- Emulating the martians will clinical manner
Artilleryman
narrator being cocky
Artilleryman talking about society
‘In the days before the invasion no one would have questioned my intellectual superiority to his - I, a professed and recognised writer on philosophical themes, and he, a common soldier’
- CONT: VICTORIAN SOCIETY + CLASS
- ‘I, a professed and recognised writer on philsomical themes’ - long description compared to soldier shows the difference in class
- PARALLEL TO MARTIANS, both under GOD but one is better than the other
Narrator
railways go down
Fall of London
‘Even the railway organisations were losing coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening running at last in that swift liquefaction of the social body’
- VICTORIAN SOCIETY, CHAOS
- CONT: railways are the peak of Victorian Society
- ‘even the railway organisations’ - ‘even’ shows the incredulity of the narrator as the railways are the peak of Victorian technology and they are breaking
- repetition of verbs emphasises the speed at which this occurs ‘losing’, ‘guttering’, ‘softening’, running’
Narrators Brother
policeman in london
Fall of London
‘ a mounted policeman came galloping through the confusion with his hands clasped over his head, screaming’
- VICTORIAN SOCIETY, CHAOS
- ‘policeman’ contrasted to ‘screaming’ - shows breakdown of law and order as authority figure shows emotion/terror
- ‘hands clasped over his head’ - childish, makes him seem vulnerable, representative of chaos
Narrator’s Brother
dead london
London at the end
‘ London about me gazed at me spectrally. The windows in the white houses were like eye sockets in skulls’
- CONT: GOTHIC - precusor to dystopian, had some influence
- CONT: London is the center of the empire
- ‘sprectrally’ - connotations of emptiness - Gothic word
- ‘eye sockets of skulls - deathly imagery, personified using a similie
Narrator
describing martian nature but arrogant
Book 2 Chapter 2
‘ A mere selfish intelligence, without any of the emotional substratum of the human being’
- HUMAN ARROGANCE
- LNK artilleryman
- ‘mere’ - highlights arrogance of humans as they say the intelligence of Martians is not enough (implied compared to them )
Talking abour martians nature - Narrator
blood trees
Book 2 Chapter 6
‘ through scarlet and crimson trees towards Kew - it was like walking through an avenue of gigantic blood drop’
- MOTIF OF RED, SIZE, NATURE
- ‘scarlet and crimson’ contrasted with ‘trees’ which are generally associated with green GOTHIC UNCANNY
- ‘drop’ and ‘gigantic’ contrast as drops are generally small showing unnaturalness
Narrator in the end coming towards London
