Summary:
The book describes many scientific theories and also goes very deep into planet alignments which greatly relates to science. It also relates quite a bit to social studies because it again describes many historical theories and "What If's" that were made into reality in the story. It also relates to technology.
The War of the Worlds By H.G. Wells. The beginning setting in the story is in a town to the south west of London called Working. The story takes place in the late 1800's. The main character (unnamed) is a scientist and astronomer who lives in the town of Working. While at an observatory he and his colleagues witness the firing of many things similar to meteors launched from the planet Mars through their telescope. They inform many other scientists who alert the press, but they make nothing of the claim and do not publish the story. A week later one of the meteors hit in the main characters town. He and his partners go to investigate and find a large metal cylinder half buried in the crater which is too hot to touch and makes many noises. Soon after that, the top of the cylinder unscrews and out emerges a towering metal saucer that walks on tall, skinny, and metal pole legs. Instantly the metal figure fires a heat ray killing most within proximity of it. The main character luckily survives and returns home to evacuate his wife from their house. At this time the army is called into the town and tries to artillery the metal machine, they are unsuccessful and are eventually killed also by the Martian heat ray. The main character takes his wife to a far away city where she is to be safe and he continues on into London. Once in London the main character learns that more metal machines are slowly making their may towards London killing all on their way. At this point in the story the point of view changes and the previous main characters brother who lives in London is now the main character. He is also fleeing from the Martians and makes his way northward towards the river to get as far away from London as possible. He makes his way to the river and manages to barter his way onto a steamboat. All the people are now also fleeing the Martians and are all trying to get on a boat away from London.
The brother gets to the other side of the river followed closely by the Martians. On his way walking north he encounters a man trying to steal a wealthy woman's carriage in an attempt to get north faster. He helps the woman and she offers him to join her in her carriage. They soon get to a city where it is impossible to get through the streets because of the thousands of refugees. Mass chaos occurs and the people begin to fight. At this point in the story it rejoins the main character, the scientist.
The scientist meets up with a man who he saves from a Martian heat ray by fleeing under the scalding river and manages to survive. He and this man continue on but are very low on food supplies. In order to survive they loot through abandoned houses and try to salvage food. They find themselves in a house with an unusually large food supply. While in the house the two men are thrown by another cylinder striking the earth very close to the house, burying alive the two men in the house. They manage to survive for many days hoping to remove themselves out of the rubble. With a Martian near by, the scientists companion becomes crazy and try's to give away their hideout in the house. Unable to do anything else to save his life, the scientist finds a knife and kills his crazy companion. Days later he removes himself from the rubble by digging out and finds the town deserted and destroyed. He travels by foot to attempt to get to a city where he can find food. On his way, he meets up with a man who he recognizes as a friend from his hometown, Working. His friend is planning to steal a Martian ship and try to fight the Martian invasion; the scientist agrees to help him with his plan. Weeks before the scientist is supposed to help his friend stop the invasion he takes a walk to a town where supposedly the Martians are. To his surprise he finds the Martians machines motionless. He investigates and finds that the Martians controlling the giant ships are dead. He then decides to return to his hometown working learning that all the Martian that were invading were dead and were killed by a common bacteria found on earth that they were not immune to. He also learns that the town his wife was in was destroyed. Assuming that his wife was killed he returns to his home and grieves for his dead wife. A day later his wife shows up to their house and informs him that he and the family she was staying with survived the attacks. The scientist and his wife try to continue their life while the rest of the London areas try to recover from the Martian invasion.
This book relates to many other curricula in school. The book describes many scientific theories and also goes very deep into planet alignments which greatly relates to science. It also relates quite a bit to social studies because it again describes many historical theories and "What If's" that were made into reality in the story. It also relates to technology. The technological advances the Martians had over the humans was greatly emphasized in the story as well. Math, music, and art are not emphasized very much in the story other than mentioning how far away things are in relation to math.
This is the complete article, containing 933 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
