CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND ANALYSIS
Book Two: The Earth Under the Martians
Chapter One - Under Foot
Summary
This chapter returns to the perspective of the narrator, who has been hiding out for most of Sunday and Monday in an abandoned house with the curate in order to avoid the Black Smoke. As far as he knows, his wife is still in Leatherhead and now counts him among the dead. The cousin she is staying with is a brave man but slow to recognize danger. Consumed with worry over her safety, he tries to get away from the curate, who is starting to annoy him, finally succeeding by locking himself in a room upstairs. On Sunday evening, there are people in the house next door but later there is no sign of them.
A Martian comes on Monday and uses the high-powered steam to blast away the Black Smoke. The narrator gets provisions ready as he prepares to leave the house and go on to Leatherhead. The curate is unwilling to leave at first but is apparently more scared of staying alone than venturing out with someone, so he goes as well. On the way they see dead men and horses, reminding the narrator of the scene at Pompeii. In Hampton Court they spot a small bit of green vegetation that has survived and, of further comfort, there are deer and people about in BusheyPark.
As the two continue on, they see more people, moving about in search of better housing. There are also the smashed remains of three bicycles, as proof of the flight out of the town. Near Kew, they suddenly find themselves standing quite near to a Martian. They hide out in a shed until twilight, when the narrator feels he must continue on to Leatherhead and the curate unhappily follows after him. They soon see a Martian, busy hunting people down and throwing them into a metal container attached to the machine.
The narrator and curate hide in a ditch until late that night when they cautiously resume traveling. They see the burned bodies of many men, lying near the ruins of guns. Upon reaching Sheen, they break into a house and get water and a hatchet. A little farther on, they go into another house where they find a store of food, including bread, meat, vegetables, and soup, so they eat up. The narrator is in favor of staying here for a bit to build up strength, while the curate is nervous and wants to leave.
Suddenly there is a bright green light and a tremendous crash. In the house, the narrator is thrown into the oven handle and knocked out while objects and parts of the ceiling fall about the floor. The curate, his own face bloody from a cut on his forehead, is putting water on the narrator’s face when he comes to. They hear noises outside and, thinking it is the Martians, remain motionless for hours. When day finally comes, the light reaches them through a triangular gap in the ruins, not through the window. They see a Martian standing guard nearby so they quickly move into the shadows.
The narrator then figures out what happened. The fifth cylinder has landed quite close by them, collapsing part of the house and throwing up a mound of dirt against the window. The two are trapped right by the Martians in what is left of the house. They sit silently, while the noises outside continue, until, awake and hungry, the narrator goes to get food and the curate follows.
Chapter Two - What We Saw from the Ruined House
Summary
They finish eating and return to the scullery, where the narrator falls asleep. When he wakes up, he finds the curate looking out at the Martians. The narrator makes his way over to the window carefully and the curate, absorbed in the events outside, does not notice. He reacts with such intensity when the narrator touches his leg, that a large fragment of plaster is jarred loose from the ruins. Its fall leaves a thin vertical opening, out of which the narrator is able to see, thus providing the opportunity to watch the Martians more than anyone else.
The fifth cylinder has landed right on top of house where they had gotten the water and hatchet, smashing it into small, unrecognizable pieces. The pit its impact has made is already bigger than that of the first cylinder and a new kind of Martian machine is busily expanding it. The house that the narrator and curate are in now is on the edge of the pit. Its front section is destroyed and the rest, except for that side opening onto the Martians, lies under a deep layer of dirt.
The cylinder is open and the Martian in the machine that was standing guard has left it. The narrator mentions a popular pamphlet that came out after the war, which failed in its illustration of the tripod machines, portraying them stiffly rather than flexible and somehow almost life-like. The handling-machines, as they came to be called, had this quality even more. They are something like a spider or crab, with five jointed legs and many tentacles and other extensions attached to its body. The one in the pit is using three of its tentacles to move objects out of the fallen cylinder.
Physically, a Martian himself is mostly brain and nerves, having a head four feet in diameter and little in the way of a body. It has two eyes, with a visual range similar to humans, though blue and violet look like black to them. There is no nose or ability to smell. It has a “fleshy beak” and two groups of eight tentacles (or hands) each near its mouth, which it likely used to move about on Mars. It has an ear in the back of its head, but the denser air of Earth probably made it useless. The heavier atmosphere and stronger gravity also strained its heart, which is ill-suited for such a world. It also has a lung. The narrator recalls a writer who predicted a similar form for humans as evolution continues.
Martians do not have any digestive organs and use a process of injection instead. This involves first expelling air, thereby causing the noises that people mistook for a sort of speech, though the narrator believes that the Martians communicated telepathically. Then, the blood is run from a living creature into the Martian. Men, similar to the six-foot bipeds with weak skeletons that they drained on Mars, are the preferred victims on Earth.
The narrator later learns three differences between Martians and men. They do not need rest, since they do not have a substantial muscle structure. They do not have sex and instead reproduce through budded growths, which is known since a Martian was born while on Earth. Finally, they either have gotten rid of, or never had, any microorganisms. On a more apparent level, the Martians do not wear clothes, but rather switch bodies to the one most appropriate for whatever task. Also, their technology does not involve the wheel or fixed pivot at all, but is far more complex.
After giving the curate a turn to look, the narrator returns to look and sees a new machine, involved in excavation. It gives off a green vapor that drifts by the makeshift window. The noise and vibrations it creates can be felt in the house.
Chapter Three - The Days of Imprisonment
Summary
A second machine appears, and fearing that it could see in, the narrator and curate abandon the window. They soon figure that the brightness of the outside will obscure any view inside the shadowy kitchen in which they are hiding. Curiosity overcomes fear and they return to the window.
Though it was clear from the start that they had conflicting personalities, the confines of their current situation emphasize this. The narrator is becoming quite annoyed with the curate’s fragile emotional state and is concerned over his rate of consumption of their limited supply of food and drink. The curate however continues to act this way and only by using physical force can the narrator get him to show some control for a little while.
There are three more machines at the pit and a second handling-machine has been built. It is tossing dirt into a new machine, out of which comes a white powder. This then travels to another machine, but all the narrator can see of it is some wisps of green smoke, since it is behind a pile of dust that grows increasingly larger throughout the day. The result of this process is shiny new bars of aluminum and the machines are able to produce more than 100 of them in just a few hours.
The curate is looking out at the Martians when he suddenly becomes panicked and upset. Although the narrator thinks at first that it is because the Martians realized they were there, he comes to realize it was something else when he goes to the opening. He watches as one of the machines, with a Martian inside, stretches a tentacle into the container on its back. It lifts out a man, who, judging by his dress, was well-off and important just a few days earlier. Then he is hidden from sight by the pile of dust, but shortly thereafter screaming could be heard, along with the sound of the Martians releasing air before they began injection.
At this, the narrator turns and runs into the scullery, with the curate following quickly. The narrator figures that their best hope is that the Martians will abandon, or at least stop guarding, the pit. Then, after seeing for the first and only time the Martians feeding, this time on a young boy, he decides to dig his way out. When the hole collapses noisily, he is forced to give it up, demoralized.
A day or two later, when the pit is nearly empty, the narrator hears a dog howling. There is the sound of large guns firing off six shots, followed by six more, and then the night continues on quietly.
Chapter Four - The Death of the Curate
Summary
The narrator is staring out the makeshift window on the sixth day when he notices the curious absence of the curate, who was usually close by waiting for his turn. Finding him in the scullery drinking, the narrator becomes insistent on the need to ration, dividing the food up so it will last ten more days.
Through occasional physical fighting and constant watching, the narrator manages to keep the curate under some control. However, the curate’s mental stability has been deteriorating since he first encountered the Martians and has become insane. By the eighth day, he is speaking out loud of his regret over his sins and his want of more food. For the latter, he threatens the narrator that he will become loud enough to blow their cover with the Martians. Though the narrator does not give in, the curate does not carry out his threat, but that day and the next his speech gradually gets louder.
When the curate becomes so insane that he starts shouting, the narrator hits him over the head with the butt of a meat chopper, knocking him unconscious, possibly killing him. It was too late to prevent the Martians from hearing though.
One of the machines stuck a tentacle in through the gap that had served as a window. It pulls the still body of the curate out into the open and examines it. The narrator is unsure whether the Martian had seen him when it approached or is able to figure out his presence from the curate’s injury. Despite being paralyzed, and then trembling, with fear, the narrator manages to get into the coal cellar. He closes the door and hides among the firewood and coal.
At one point the door to the cellar is opened and an investigating tentacle reaches about, even touching the heel of the narrator’s boot. After some long, tense moments when the narrator is uncertain if it is still there, and not until after cleaning out the pantry, the tentacle withdraws for good. But the narrator remains where he is for another day, finally emerging on the eleventh day.
Chapter Five - The Stillness
Summary
The Martian has left no food or drink in the pantry so the eleventh and twelfth days find the narrator increasingly weak and discouraged. During this time, he hears no noises from the pit and fears for a short time that he has gone deaf. He finally becomes so thirsty that he risks alerting the Martians to his presence and gets some rainwater from the noisy pump. He passes the thirteenth day in a similar manner, drinking occasionally and fitfully thinking of the dead curate.
On the fifteenth day, a dog appears by the opening in the debris. Figuring he will kill the dog for the dual purposes of food and to prevent attracting the Martians, the narrator moves closer. However the dog leaves shortly afterward, returning to his roaming about the pit. The narrator becomes attentive for awhile, and hearing no sound of the Martians, he risks looking out.
There are no Martians in sight and the pit has only the pile of powder for making the aluminum bars and the remains of the victims that were drained, crows now picking about them. Hesitatingly, the narrator clamors out from his hiding place and makes his way to the top of the pit. Though the scene of destroyed buildings and red plants is quite different from his memory of pleasant houses and cool trees, the narrator is content for the moment to take in the blue sky and refreshing air.
Chapter Six - The Work of Fifteen Days
Summary
As the narrator stands in amazement at the world that has come to look so different after only a few days in the hands of the Martians, he feels at level with the animals for a moment but it passes quickly. He begins walking, setting off through the tall weeds, until he is able to make his way over a six foot wall and get some food out of a garden. This, along with some mushrooms which he later comes across, tide him over for awhile, though he continues to be driven to get food and as far away from the pit as his strength will allow.
Continuing his travel, the narrator notices that the weeds grow prolifically in water, and that this has caused flooding as they choke up the streams. He drinks up the water regardless, and even tastes one of the weeds but finds it unpleasant. He says that eventually bacteria caused a disease that killed the weeds off quickly.
As he goes on, the narrator’s surroundings show more signs of the world as it had been, the abundance of the red weed gradually gives way to the sight of quiet houses. Having seen no Martians or other humans, but only wary dogs and skeletons (he tries to get something off, for food, but there is nothing left on them), he rests.
At nightfall, he resumes walking and comes across some potatoes in a garden, enough to satisfy his hunger for awhile. He sees evidence of the use of the Heat-Ray and everywhere there is silence. The narrator thinks that he is the only one around who had not become a victim to the Martians’ “extermination.” He is horrified at the speed of events, and thought of the Martians off in other places, destroying the world.
Chapter Seven - The Man on Putney Hill
Summary
After breaking into an inn that night, the narrator sleeps on an actual bed and fills himself and his pockets with some biscuits that have escaped the notice of previous looters. With his improved circumstance, he is able to think-of the curate’s death, which brings up feelings of sadness but not of regret since he did not foresee it and it is therefore not a crime; of the Martians, whose current location the narrator is unsure of; and his wife, whom he prays for and misses, with the idea of going to Leatherhead and then tracking her flight. He remarks that if “nothing else, this war has taught us pity.”
In the morning, he sees the remains of the mass flight from the area. Going further on, the narrator reaches Wimbledon Common, an open and sunlit area where he is stopped by an armed man who claims the nearby land and what food remains on it for himself. Suddenly the two men recognize each other-it is the artilleryman with whom he spent the last night in his house. At this, the artilleryman becomes friendlier and the two move under the cover of bushes to talk.
The artilleryman says that the Martians have moved past London but from the lights he sees at night he thinks they have built a new machine and are now capable of flight. At the narrator’s response that there is nothing stopping the Martians from taking over the world, now that they can move from continent to continent, the artilleryman tells him that mankind has lost. Though he had not thought of it in such terms before, the narrator finds it difficult to counter. He does try to argue that he only saw ten shots from the observatory, but the artilleryman remains convinced that the Martians are continuing to come, just landing in different areas of the Earth.