War Of The Worlds

War of the Worlds

The original 'war of the worlds' was a novel wrote in 1898 by H.G. Wells. He wrote about the themes of paranoia, fear of annihilation and the fear of 'others' due to society in that time period. This version of the story connotes paranoia within the fear of cultural destruction. People believed that immigrants would come and over take Europe's empire, they thought that by doing this, they would over take the British with their culture and differences. This ties in with the fear of 'others'. People felt threatened by foreign nations and anything 'different' from their way of life. People saw immigrants as a threat to British culture and culture ideologies; Aliens taking over the world were used to show this and how people felt at the time. Aliens exterminating civilisation showed societies fear of annihilation, it showed how people feared the collapse of the British empire and everyone with it. 

The second version of 'war of the worlds' was a radio drama created in 1938. This version also had themes of paranoia, fear of 'others' and fear annihilation. However, unlike the original, this version connoted peoples paranoia about the rise of the Nazi party at the time. People at the time feared fascism in Germany and this lead to the fear of World War. People would turn on the radio not realising that this was a radio drama created to purposely entertain people. This meant that they wouldn't know what was going on and would actually believe 'aliens' were attacking. This lead to the fear of annihilation and the belief that world war 2 would begin. However, the 'aliens' in this radio drama connoted foreign nations such as Japan, Russia, Germany and Italy. This was because society feared emergence of nuclear technology and the numerous threats from Europe and Asia.