SSC Film Studies

In what ways can War Of The Worlds be considered allegorical.

War of the worlds as a story has been used many times over the years as an allegory for events taking place during that time period.

The first version of War Of The Worlds was the 1898 novel by HG Welles. This novel can be considered allegorical for many reasons. Firstly it plays on the feeling of paranoia in the world at that particular time. Many people were paranoid because of the inevitable end of the British Empire. Which in turn caused a massive influx of immigrants to Britain. In HG Welles novel, the story takes place in London at the same time period the novel was released. This invasion of outsiders and the fear and panic over them was allegorical of the attitudes of many of the British people at that time. Another key point to note is the fear of the end of the world that was circulating at that time.  Many people believed that at the turn of the century the world was going to end. This of course was not true, but the novel played on that fear. The invaders in the novel destroy cities and almost brings humanity to its knees. A similar scenario would be played out if the world did end.

The novel was later adapted into a radio show in 1938. Again the radio show was allegorical of the attitudes of many at that time. The radio show was released a year before the start of World War II. At this point, there was a widespread fear of Hitler and Nazi-ism all around the world. Yet again, the aliens destroy everyones way of life and bring them to the very brink of extinction. This is what people expected of the Nazi's in Europe and America. The spread of the aliens across the globe is allegorical of the fear of Nazi domination and the threat of them dominating the globe, such as Hitler promised when addressing the German population.

After this the film was adapted into a film in 1953. The film was used as an allegory once again. But instead of immigration or Nazi-ism, this time the threat was communism, more specifically the red scare. At the time a lot of people were afraid of communism entering the united states. This fear was spread by Joseph Mccarthy, a US senator at the time. As well as this paranoia, the film was also an allegory for the fear of annihilation, there was a very real threat at the time of the USSR possessing nuclear weapons. The American people were afraid of a nuclear attack on the US. The film was also allegorical for the fear of "others". What this meant was that the American people were becoming increasingly aware of the number of immigrants entering the US at this time, as these people came from different ethnic backgrounds and were what was considered "different" the American people were mistrustful and afraid of the immigrants as they thought they posed a threat to their way of life. These immigrants were referred to as "Aliens".

Later on, the film was re-booted in the 2005 remake. This version of the film was again allegorical for a few reasons. The film had the key theme of paranoia, which was allegorical of the feeling in the world at that time, especially in the United States as this film was post 9/11. The feeling of paranoid is brought about by the worlds fear of terrorism. In 2005 the war on terror was in effect. As well as this, in 2005 Britain was subject to a terrorist attack in London. In America, the fear of immigrants was still there as a fear of "others", which is another one of the key themes of the film. A fear of annihilation is present both in the film and in American society. This fear is stemmed from the mistrust of middle eastern people, especially Islam. This is due to the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda, who were responsible for both terrorist attacks in the US and the UK.