War of the worlds

In what way can the story of 'war of the worlds' be considered allegorical?

War of the worlds is such a significant story because it tapped into the problems of society at the time, this is why it always came back as a new version. All the versions had the same fears and themes stayed from the first version (novel-1989) all the way to the version now (film-2005).
Each time that society feels a sense of paranoia, fear of 'others' or face uncertain futures (fear of annihilation) the story is remade with a new image of what society fears and is facing.

The first version of war of the worlds was a novel written in 1898. When this novel was released people interoperated it to be an allegory of British imperialism and ever since has been used several times as an allegory to express major social and cultural events. During the time of release the British Empire was the most dominant colonial power on Earth and London was its political and economic centre. The novel was set in Victorian England when Britain had the largest Empire, this links to the film made in 2005 as during the time the film was made the USA had the largest Empire and it is set in New York the place where if there was any political affairs it would be taken there. The novel was written at a time when fears grew about immigration and the increase into Britain due to the size of the Empire. One of the fears that came from this novel was fear of 'others' as people felt increasingly threatened by the rise of foreign nations and that immigrants were a threat to the British culture and what they stood for. Another fear was paranoia as they felt their culture would be destroyed and that it would soon be the end of the world. There was also fear of annihilation as people felt that the British empire would soon collapse and be destroyed by the immigrants.

War of the worlds then returned in 1938 as as a radio drama, this was during the rise of the Nazi party before world war two and people feared all the same things just for different political and social reasons. bing under treat meant that there was fear of other and paranoia started to set in and rise, in addition to this fear of war was a huge fear amongst many people. Paranoia and fear of others was due to the fear of fascism and that it was in direct opposition to capitalism and fear that war would break out once again. In addition to this people feared foreign nations such as Japan, Russia, Germany, Italy etc would attack.

The next time war of the worlds returned was in 1953 in the creation of a film. The film grew after the second world war and tensions between the USSR and the USA which spared the cold war. All the same fears were represented however they switched to fear of nuclear annihilation and interference, the thought of nuclear bombs terrified people creating paranoia and fear of others once again. All of these fears were prominent through fear of communism and the shift in ideologies as Americans feared conflict with Cuba would create more immigration in the USA.

The most recent return of the story was in 2005 with yet another film, this film was made after the attack on the twin towers (9/11) in New York city. Americans had fear of others and paranoia as they felt there would be more terror attacks and that there would be a lead up to war on terrorists, the main fear was of the islamic terrorists as they supposedly carried out the attack due to religious reasons. the fear of annihilation was also present as there would be future terror attacks and they they would try and wipe out more and more Americans in the future. The film shows depicts things that happened during 9/11 such as people coming home covered in white and grey dust and the clothes falling from the sky which are remakes of what really happened during the 9/11 terror attack.

Overall it is seen that this story always returns when these fears are prominent in society and there has been a shift in society or there was been social change or a political outrage. The story is a significant piece of media that comes back when ever distraction happens in a large country as it was originally set in England but has recently stopped in the USA when there was destruction on the American society.