The Curate
The curate within Wells's world presents a look into Wells's interpretation of religion. While in general a vague character (we never really find out any details as to his exact position in pre-Martian English society), the narrator spends a great deal of the book living alongside the curate. First impressions for the narrator do not go well - the curate cannot hold his own in the world, and makes no effort to sustain himself against the Martians. The narrator takes it upon himself to rescue the curate from the roadside, but is quickly trapped for 2 weeks with the man when the fifth cylinder crashes in the vicinity of the house they hide within. During this time the curate suffers wild mood swings, between claims that God has forsaken humanity, to arguing about the little food left within the house for them to share (often hoarding the food and exponentially over-eating). For all intents and purposes, the reader is made away that during this period, the curate stays alive only due to the actions of the narrator. But the narrator is hardly benevolent. The narrator is not ignorant of these harsh actions - in fact, he calls upon the reader to forgive his rash behavior and struggles with the curate. As the weeks go by, the narrator finds himself getting into physical conflict with the curate. Perhaps these physical tests of strength between the two characters is one of the clearest examples of Wells's writings reflecting social Darwinism. Just as two animals fight over food and survival against the greater threat of predators, so does the narrator and the curate wrestle one another to exhaustion. The fighting between the two characters culminates eventually in the narrator's attempted murder of the curate with the hilt of a kitchen knife, thwarted at the last second by the abduction of the curate by the neighboring Martians. While the narrator did treat the curate harshly, Wells clearly exposes the narrator as the stronger willed and stronger built of the two men. In essence, the lack of consequences against the narrator, and in fact his continued survival, seems almost a implicit endorsement of the narrator's prowess, and therefore, an endorsement of the process of natural selection applied to man.
While I do see the influences of Darwinism and Huxley in Wells's work, I would caution against what we students of literature refer to as "biographical fallacy," which suggests a study of literary works based on the author's biographical information. It is significantly easier to point out, however, the cultural influences of the 19th century in Wells's work, particularly in War of the Worlds. However, I think that the fact that the Martians are brought low by something as minor and seemingly insignificant as microbes speaks to something more than survival of the fittest, however--I feel like it says something about the nature of being organic and Earthlike instead of cold and Martian. But I may be simplifying.
ReplyDeleteI thought your point about the narrator and the curate, however, was particularly well-made, but wanted to reiterate the comment I made in class that it seems like Wells is making a comment about modernist society.
~Morgan Halvorsen