At the end of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th, much of the world was changing. In particular, world literature was moving from the ideals of romanticism to the austere realism of novels written after the Great War. At the beginning of this change is the novel “The War of the Worlds” by HG Wells. It is a unique work in that it can be seen as an example of the two literary themes present in the 1890s, romanticism and realism. In the words of Wells himself, it is a "scientific romance" combining aspects of both. Although he uses the Martian invasion of Earth as an extended metaphor to criticize imperialism in a romantic form, his approach is very realistic through his use of verisimilitude, recounting the fictional invasion as a real event that occurred in a recent past. It is the use of this literary technique that allows "The War of the Worlds" to stand out among novels with similar themes but rather conventional premises, such as "The Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay Considering the subject matter, the opinions and knowledge of the general public of the time, as well as the dominant literary ideas, it was crucial to establish credibility from the start. Otherwise, the novel would have been easily dismissed as too fanciful or too confusing, and its emotional impact would have been greatly reduced. In the novel, Wells provides a basis for the use of verisimilitude by writing in the first person, past tense, and from the point of view of a participant writing his memoirs about an event in the near past, all of which contribute to giving the public the feeling of revisiting something that has already happened. This is crucial because the audience can better identify with a highly improbable but historical event, rather than a similar event that might only happen in the future. Wells supports this basis through a description of the Martian investigation of man and introduces a comparison with imperialism by immediately stating that "as men attended to their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied [as the would] a man with a microscope could peer into man. ephemeral creatures… in a drop of water” and that men were also “serene in the assurance of their empire over matter” (3). As an aside, the use of verisimilitude in The War of the Worlds has the side effect of making the novel more direct (since it ideally appears as the narrator's memoir) and therefore more palatable to the average reader. Rather than requiring a lengthy introduction that could span several chapters and potentially discourage the audience, the novel can instead introduce the most relevant details needed to create the background plot and transition to the main plot in a few pages only. It's an unorthodox start, but it does wonders to convince the audience that the novel has intellectual value beyond the basic story and is not just another wild fantasy to be dismissed. As the plot progresses toward the narrator's account of what really happened, Wells continues. building on the foundation established in the opening pages to further integrate verisimilitude into the novel. First, it uses precise scientific facts to describe Mars and the Martian journey to Earth. It reminds the public of the vast stellar distances involved (140,000,000 miles), which at the time was hardly known to everyone. For the average reader, this evokes a feeling of respectfaced with the Martians' ability to travel such a distance. Next, he moves into a discussion of why the Martians wanted to come to Earth in the first place, in order to clear up much of the ambiguity as to why such different creatures (as the reader later learns ) would like to take the trouble to do so. At this point, the theme of criticism of imperialism emerges forcefully, as the narrator speaks directly to the audience: "And before we judge them too harshly, we must remember what... destruction our own species has inflicted, not only on animals,…but also on its inferior races,” referring to the Tasmanians who were wiped out by British colonists (5). By comparing the Martians to the British imperialists, Wells shows readers how, through the British Empire, they mistreated much of the developing world. As for the reader, seeing the similarity between seemingly inhuman monsters and themselves is surprising. Wells also draws inspiration from his own reality to give proper names to the characters and places in the novel. The narrator states that the Martian preparations were spotted by several real astronomers such as Perrotin de Nice, Lavelle de Java and Oglivy, a famous British observer. He even spent the night with Oglivy at his Ottershaw observatory, where they observed the launch of the first cylinder. However, regardless of what this might mean for them, the population remains indifferent, as evidenced by Punch satirizing "volcanoes on Mars" for political cartooning (8-9). Wells then places the landing site of the first cylinder as Horsell Common, which was an open area near his house and the house of the novel's narrator. Wells could easily have set the setting in a foreign or fictional country, but setting it in Britain makes the matter all the more urgent; reading about a devastated faraway place is one thing, but reading about your own town and surrounding devastated towns is another. A common method of distancing oneself from a traumatic event that has happened to others is to assert that it won't happen here. Setting the novel in Britain prevents the audience from resorting to this method and forces them to confront their fears and apprehensions, both regarding the fictional Martians and the real effects of British imperialism on the world. The War of the Worlds" reads like a factual real-life account that needs to come early to establish credibility, but that doesn't mean it can overlook the rest of the novel. Throughout the rest of the story, Wells uses several contrasts in the reactions of the British people to the Martian invasion to further support the theme. For example, the narrator describes how, after the first use of the Heat Ray, he encounters a group of people who have only heard of it. , but who have not actually seen its deadly effects One of them asks: “People seem quite stupid about the common and when given an answer, she. replies that she heard “Enough, thank you” (33) The group blames the narrator for exaggerating the crisis, which was most people's reaction to the effects of imperialism. 'dismissed as something they didn't need to worry about, because they had only heard about it, rather than seen it firsthand. However, when the Martians finally emerge on their iconic tripods, people change their minds without even a small demonstration of the Heat Ray, as shown by the response to Shepperton and Weybridge shortly after. A similar response is described by the narrator's brother in London, as "people in their finest clothes.