Things Fall Apart

Summary — What This Novel Is Really About

• Plot: An unnamed narrator witnesses Martians land in cylinders near his home in Woking, England. They unleash devastating "Heat-Rays" and poisonous "Black Smoke," destroying the army and forcing mass evacuation. The narrator is separated from his wife, teams up with an artilleryman and a curate, and witnesses the fall of London. In the end, the Martians die suddenly — not defeated by humans, but killed by ordinary earthly bacteria they had no immunity to.
• Genre: Science fiction / "invasion literature" — written to reflect Victorian fears of foreign invasion and to critique British imperialism.
• Structure: Two books — Book One: The Coming of the Martians and Book Two: The Earth Under the Martians — told in first-person, six years after the events, in a factual/journalistic style.
• Three big themes: Nature and Evolution, Fear and the Unknown, War and Destruction.
• Key characters: the narrator (rational, observant, a writer), the artilleryman (strong but ultimately lazy and full of empty plans), the curate (weak, religious, breaks down under pressure).
• Wells' key move: he keeps flipping who's "superior" — Martians look down on humans exactly the way humans look down on "lesser" species and colonised peoples. This is deliberate and is central to his critique of imperialism.

1. Plot — The Story in Order

Getting the sequence of events straight is essential — exam questions often ask you to discuss "the opening," "the middle," or "the ending," so know what happens when.

Book One: The Coming of the Martians

Think of Book One as "arrival and panic." A cylinder crashes on Horsell Common. Curious crowds gather (including the narrator and the astronomer Ogilvy). The cylinder opens, Martians emerge, and a "peace party" carrying a white flag is instantly incinerated by the Heat-Ray — showing immediately that human diplomacy means nothing to the Martians. As destruction spreads through Surrey, the narrator tries to get his wife to safety, meets the artilleryman, and eventually the curate, before the two men become trapped together as London falls.

Book Two: The Earth Under the Martians

Think of Book Two as "survival and revelation." The narrator and curate are trapped in a ruined house near a Martian pit, where the narrator observes the Martians closely for the first time — learning they feed on human blood and don't need sleep. The curate's mental breakdown escalates until the narrator strikes him to keep them both hidden, and the curate is dragged off and killed. Alone, the narrator wanders a dead, red-weed-covered London, meets the artilleryman again (who has grand but hollow plans for an underground human resistance), and finally discovers — almost by accident — that the Martians are all dead, killed by bacteria. The novel ends with reunion with his wife and a sober warning about future threats.

2. Themes

Nature and Evolution

Wells was fascinated by Darwin's theory of evolution (he was taught by Darwin's supporter T.H. Huxley). The Martians are technologically and biologically "advanced" beyond humans — but Wells' twist is that evolutionary strength isn't just about intelligence or weapons. It's about fit with environment. The Martians are perfectly evolved for Mars, not Earth, and that's exactly why they die.

Fear and the Unknown

The novel sits in a genre called "invasion literature" — hugely popular in late-Victorian Britain, when people were anxious about foreign invasion and the decline of British power. The narrator's home becomes alien to him even though nothing about the physical place has changed — it's his sense of safety that's gone. The curate represents religious people whose entire worldview cannot process something as "un-Biblical" as an alien invasion — he keeps comparing it to Sodom and Gomorrah because he has no other framework to understand it.

War and Destruction

Wells was a socialist and critical of British imperialism. He said the plot was directly inspired by the real-life massacre of Tasmania's Aboriginal people by European colonisers — the "war of extermination." By making humans the ones being wiped out by a technologically superior invader, Wells forces British readers to feel, briefly, what it might be like to be on the receiving end of imperial conquest rather than the ones doing the conquering.

3. Characters

The Narrator

An unnamed writer on "philosophical themes" — deliberately ordinary and rational, so readers can trust his observations. Wells gives him a strange detachment at moments of horror ("I seem to watch it all from the outside") — this isn't coldness, it's a very human coping mechanism for trauma that a first-time reader might not expect from a "hero." He ends the novel wanting humanity to learn and prepare, not celebrating a victory.

The Artilleryman

Wells builds him with real duality — first we see him weeping and broken after a Heat-Ray encounter, later he's confident and determined ("I'm grim set on living"). But by the second half, the narrator (and reader) realise his big talk about building an underground resistance is mostly fantasy — he's more interested in food, drink, and games than actual survival work. He's a warning about the gap between what people say and what they actually do under pressure.

The Curate

Represents organised religion struggling to cope with a crisis that doesn't fit its framework. He asks "What sins have we done?" — trying to force the invasion into a religious narrative of divine punishment. His mental collapse (weeping for hours, reckless behaviour that endangers them both) contrasts with the narrator's more rational, scientific approach to the same horrors.

4. Context

Socialism and Society

Wells was a committed socialist. The novel shows a "social leveller" effect — under Martian attack, class distinctions collapse and everyone (rich or poor) fights for the same basic necessities: food, safety, escape.

Wells' Influences

Wells was taught by T.H. Huxley, a major supporter of Darwin. This explains the deep focus on evolution and "survival of the fittest" — not as a simple slogan but as a genuinely complex idea Wells interrogates throughout the novel.

Victorian England

Published in 1897, near the end of Queen Victoria's reign, at the height of British imperial power — but also amid a growing unease that this power could not last forever. The novel taps directly into this "end of an era" anxiety.

5. Writer's Methods & Techniques

Narrative Perspective

First-person, retrospective (told six years later), giving it a factual, "reportage" style. This makes the extraordinary events feel more credible and immediate — like a real eyewitness account rather than pure fantasy.

Colour Symbolism

Scientific & Sensory Language

As a former science teacher, Wells grounds the fantastical (aliens, death rays) in precise technical vocabulary ("oscillatory motions," "fighting-machines") which makes the science fiction feel scientifically plausible rather than purely magical.

What to Memorise

Concepts Checklist

Exam Tips