The War of the Worlds

A medical student who lives in London, and whose story the narrator provides as a way of showing readers the impact of the Martians throughout England. Upon hearing about the invasion, the narrator’s brother decides to visit the narrator in Woking in order to see the Martians before they are killed. When he tries to travel, though, he finds that the train isn’t running to Woking because of an accident. Gradually, the narrator’s brother learns about the imminent threat the Martians pose. Finally, when all of London has worked itself into hysteria, he flees the city on a bicycle, which he abandons when the front tire punctures irreparably. On the crowded roads, he encounters two women getting robbed in their carriage by three men. After fighting off the criminals, he joins the women. One of them, Mrs. Elphinstone insists that they must find her husband, but the other woman—her sister-in-law—agrees to the narrator’s brother’s plan to pool their money together in order to flee the country altogether. Once they finally board a boat that will take them away, they witness a spectacular battle between Martian fighting machines and a naval ship called the Thunder Child, which floats low in the water and rams into the fighting machines’ heads. As the narrator’s brother and the Elphinstone women sail away from England, they watch the Thunder Child as it successfully overpowers the fighting machines in one of the only sequences in which humans triumph over Martians.