War Of The Worlds Heroism Analysis

As James Geary once said; “Heroism often results as a response to extreme events.” In H.G. Wells’s book The War of the World’s the narrator does not show this trait of heroism. All throughout War of the World’s the narrator makes many unheroic choices and actions. The narrator has many examples as being unheroic such as not helping people in danger and leaving others to die. The narrator is not a traditional hero because he is selfish, inhumane, and also ignorant.

The narrator is a selfish person and also makes selfish moves during the invasion. Instead of trying to help the doctor, he “overtook and passed the doctor between Woking and Send” (45) leaving him to die and only saving himself. In addition to the narrator not helping the doctor the narrator does not even try to save the doctor and does not care to save him and only …show more content…
The narrator found the landlord of The Spotted Dog “unaware of what was going behind his house.” (43). Instead of warning the landlord about the Martians nearby, he does not care to tell and also leaves him to be attacked by the Martians. While walking away from the Martians as they started to attack, he passes “a figure of a workman carrying a basket” and “beside him ran a little boy.” (31). The workman and son were walking towards the danger of the Martians and the narrator was “minded to speak to him but [he] did not.” (31) and in addition to not alarming the workman and son, he is letting them walk towards their death. The narrator does not care to help others and see if other people need help. Instead of trying to help he goes to a “box room at the top of the house and in order to be alone with [his] aching miseries, [and] locked [himself] in.” (124). He locks himself away from danger, not caring about others. All in all, the narrator just does not care about other people’s fate and is ignorant throughout War of the