CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND ANALYSIS
Book Two: The Earth Under the Martians
Chapter One - Under Foot
Summary
This chapter returns to the perspective of the narrator, who has been hiding out for most of Sunday and
Monday in an abandoned house with the curate in order to avoid the Black Smoke. As far as he knows, his
wife is still in Leatherhead and now counts him among the dead. The cousin she is staying with is a brave man
but slow to recognize danger. Consumed with worry over her safety, he tries to get away from the curate,
who is starting to annoy him, finally succeeding by locking himself in a room upstairs. On Sunday evening,
there are people in the house next door but later there is no sign of them.
A Martian comes on Monday and uses the high-powered steam to blast away the Black Smoke. The narrator
gets provisions ready as he prepares to leave the house and go on to Leatherhead. The curate is unwilling to
leave at first but is apparently more scared of staying alone than venturing out with someone, so he goes as
well. On the way they see dead men and horses, reminding the narrator of the scene at Pompeii. In Hampton
Court they spot a small bit of green vegetation that has survived and, of further comfort, there are deer and
people about in Bushey Park.
As the two continue on, they see more people, moving about in search of better housing. There are also the
smashed remains of three bicycles, as proof of the flight out of the town. Near Kew, they suddenly find
themselves standing quite near to a Martian. They hide out in a shed until twilight, when the narrator feels he
must continue on to Leatherhead and the curate unhappily follows after him. They soon see a Martian, busy
hunting people down and throwing them into a metal container attached to the machine.
The narrator and curate hide in a ditch until late that night when they cautiously resume traveling. They see
the burned bodies of many men, lying near the ruins of guns. Upon reaching Sheen, they break into a house
and get water and a hatchet. A little farther on, they go into another house where they find a store of food,
including bread, meat, vegetables, and soup, so they eat up. The narrator is in favor of staying here for a bit
to build up strength, while the curate is nervous and wants to leave.
Suddenly there is a bright green light and a tremendous crash. In the house, the narrator is thrown into the
oven handle and knocked out while objects and parts of the ceiling fall about the floor. The curate, his own
face bloody from a cut on his forehead, is putting water on the narrator’s face when he comes to. They hear
noises outside and, thinking it is the Martians, remain motionless for hours. When day finally comes, the light
reaches them through a triangular gap in the ruins, not through the window. They see a Martian standing
guard nearby so they quickly move into the shadows.
The narrator then figures out what happened. The fifth cylinder has landed quite close by them, collapsing
part of the house and throwing up a mound of dirt against the window. The two are trapped right by the
Martians in what is left of the house. They sit silently, while the noises outside continue, until, awake and
hungry, the narrator goes to get food and the curate follows.
Chapter Two - What We Saw from the Ruined House
Summary
They finish eating and return to the scullery, where the narrator falls asleep. When he wakes up, he finds the
curate looking out at the Martians. The narrator makes his way over to the window carefully and the curate,
absorbed in the events outside, does not notice. He reacts with such intensity when the narrator touches his
leg, that a large fragment of plaster is jarred loose from the ruins. Its fall leaves a thin vertical opening, out of
which the narrator is able to see, thus providing the opportunity to watch the Martians more than anyone else.
The fifth cylinder has landed right on top of house where they had gotten the water and hatchet, smashing it
into small, unrecognizable pieces. The pit its impact has made is already bigger than that of the first cylinder
and a new kind of Martian machine is busily expanding it. The house that the narrator and curate are in now is
on the edge of the pit. Its front section is destroyed and the rest, except for that side opening onto the
Martians, lies under a deep layer of dirt.
The cylinder is open and the Martian in the machine that was standing guard has left it. The narrator mentions
a popular pamphlet that came out after the war, which failed in its illustration of the tripod machines,
portraying them stiffly rather than flexible and somehow almost life-like. The handling-machines, as they
came to be called, had this quality even more. They are something like a spider or crab, with five jointed legs
and many tentacles and other extensions attached to its body. The one in the pit is using three of its tentacles
to move objects out of the fallen cylinder.
Physically, a Martian himself is mostly brain and nerves, having a head four feet in diameter and little in the
way of a body. It has two eyes, with a visual range similar to humans, though blue and violet look like black
to them. There is no nose or ability to smell. It has a “fleshy beak” and two groups of eight tentacles (or
hands) each near its mouth, which it likely used to move about on Mars. It has an ear in the back of its head,
but the denser air of Earth probably made it useless. The heavier atmosphere and stronger gravity also
strained its heart, which is ill-suited for such a world. It also has a lung. The narrator recalls a writer who
predicted a similar form for humans as evolution continues.
Martians do not have any digestive organs and use a process of injection instead. This involves first expelling
air, thereby causing the noises that people mistook for a sort of speech, though the narrator believes that the
Martians communicated telepathically. Then, the blood is run from a living creature into the Martian. Men,
similar to the six-foot bipeds with weak skeletons that they drained on Mars, are the preferred victims on
Earth.
The narrator later learns three differences between Martians and men. They do not need rest, since they do
not have a substantial muscle structure. They do not have sex and instead reproduce through budded
growths, which is known since a Martian was born while on Earth. Finally, they either have gotten rid of, or
never had, any microorganisms. On a more apparent level, the Martians do not wear clothes, but rather
switch bodies to the one most appropriate for whatever task. Also, their technology does not involve the wheel
or fixed pivot at all, but is far more complex.
After giving the curate a turn to look, the narrator returns to look and sees a new machine, involved in
excavation. It gives off a green vapor that drifts by the makeshift window. The noise and vibrations it creates
can be felt in the house.
Chapter Three - The Days of Imprisonment
Summary
A second machine appears, and fearing that it could see in, the narrator and curate abandon the window.
They soon figure that the brightness of the outside will obscure any view inside the shadowy kitchen in which
they are hiding. Curiosity overcomes fear and they return to the window.
Though it was clear from the start that they had conflicting personalities, the confines of their current situation
emphasize this. The narrator is becoming quite annoyed with the curate’s fragile emotional state and is
concerned over his rate of consumption of their limited supply of food and drink. The curate however
continues to act this way and only by using physical force can the narrator get him to show some control for a
little while.
There are three more machines at the pit and a second handling-machine has been built. It is tossing dirt into
a new machine, out of which comes a white powder. This then travels to another machine, but all the narrator
can see of it is some wisps of green smoke, since it is behind a pile of dust that grows increasingly larger
throughout the day. The result of this process is shiny new bars of aluminum and the machines are able to
produce more than 100 of them in just a few hours.
The curate is looking out at the Martians when he suddenly becomes panicked and upset. Although the
narrator thinks at first that it is because the Martians realized they were there, he comes to realize it was
something else when he goes to the opening. He watches as one of the machines, with a Martian inside,
stretches a tentacle into the container on its back. It lifts out a man, who, judging by his dress, was well-off
and important just a few days earlier. Then he is hidden from sight by the pile of dust, but shortly thereafter
screaming could be heard, along with the sound of the Martians releasing air before they began injection.
At this, the narrator turns and runs into the scullery, with the curate following quickly. The narrator figures
that their best hope is that the Martians will abandon, or at least stop guarding, the pit. Then, after seeing for
the first and only time the Martians feeding, this time on a young boy, he decides to dig his way out. When
the hole collapses noisily, he is forced to give it up, demoralized.
A day or two later, when the pit is nearly empty, the narrator hears a dog howling. There is the sound of large
guns firing off six shots, followed by six more, and then the night continues on quietly.
Chapter Four - The Death of the Curate
Summary
The narrator is staring out the makeshift window on the sixth day when he notices the curious absence of the
curate, who was usually close by waiting for his turn. Finding him in the scullery drinking, the narrator
becomes insistent on the need to ration, dividing the food up so it will last ten more days.
Through occasional physical fighting and constant watching, the narrator manages to keep the curate under
some control. However, the curate’s mental stability has been deteriorating since he first encountered the
Martians and has become insane. By the eighth day, he is speaking out loud of his regret over his sins and his
want of more food. For the latter, he threatens the narrator that he will become loud enough to blow their
cover with the Martians. Though the narrator does not give in, the curate does not carry out his threat, but
that day and the next his speech gradually gets louder.
When the curate becomes so insane that he starts shouting, the narrator hits him over the head with the butt
of a meat chopper, knocking him unconscious, possibly killing him. It was too late to prevent the Martians
from hearing though.
One of the machines stuck a tentacle in through the gap that had served as a window. It pulls the still body of
the curate out into the open and examines it. The narrator is unsure whether the Martian had seen him when
it approached or is able to figure out his presence from the curate’s injury. Despite being paralyzed, and then
trembling, with fear, the narrator manages to get into the coal cellar. He closes the door and hides among the
firewood and coal.
At one point the door to the cellar is opened and an investigating tentacle reaches about, even touching the
heel of the narrator’s boot. After some long, tense moments when the narrator is uncertain if it is still there,
and not until after cleaning out the pantry, the tentacle withdraws for good. But the narrator remains where
he is for another day, finally emerging on the eleventh day.
Chapter Five - The Stillness
Summary
The Martian has left no food or drink in the pantry so the eleventh and twelfth days find the narrator
increasingly weak and discouraged. During this time, he hears no noises from the pit and fears for a short
time that he has gone deaf. He finally becomes so thirsty that he risks alerting the Martians to his presence
and gets some rainwater from the noisy pump. He passes the thirteenth day in a similar manner, drinking
occasionally and fitfully thinking of the dead curate.
On the fifteenth day, a dog appears by the opening in the debris. Figuring he will kill the dog for the dual
purposes of food and to prevent attracting the Martians, the narrator moves closer. However the dog leaves
shortly afterward, returning to his roaming about the pit. The narrator becomes attentive for awhile, and
hearing no sound of the Martians, he risks looking out.
There are no Martians in sight and the pit has only the pile of powder for making the aluminum bars and the
remains of the victims that were drained, crows now picking about them. Hesitatingly, the narrator clamors
out from his hiding place and makes his way to the top of the pit. Though the scene of destroyed buildings
and red plants is quite different from his memory of pleasant houses and cool trees, the narrator is content for
the moment to take in the blue sky and refreshing air.
Chapter Six - The Work of Fifteen Days
Summary
As the narrator stands in amazement at the world that has come to look so different after only a few days in
the hands of the Martians, he feels at level with the animals for a moment but it passes quickly. He begins
walking, setting off through the tall weeds, until he is able to make his way over a six foot wall and get some
food out of a garden. This, along with some mushrooms which he later comes across, tide him over for awhile,
though he continues to be driven to get food and as far away from the pit as his strength will allow.
Continuing his travel, the narrator notices that the weeds grow prolifically in water, and that this has caused
flooding as they choke up the streams. He drinks up the water regardless, and even tastes one of the weeds
but finds it unpleasant. He says that eventually bacteria caused a disease that killed the weeds off quickly.
As he goes on, the narrator’s surroundings show more signs of the world as it had been, the abundance of the
red weed gradually gives way to the sight of quiet houses. Having seen no Martians or other humans, but only
wary dogs and skeletons (he tries to get something off, for food, but there is nothing left on them), he rests.
At nightfall, he resumes walking and comes across some potatoes in a garden, enough to satisfy his hunger
for awhile. He sees evidence of the use of the Heat-Ray and everywhere there is silence. The narrator thinks
that he is the only one around who had not become a victim to the Martians’ “extermination.” He is horrified
at the speed of events, and thought of the Martians off in other places, destroying the world.
Chapter Seven - The Man on Putney Hill
Summary
After breaking into an inn that night, the narrator sleeps on an actual bed and fills himself and his pockets
with some biscuits that have escaped the notice of previous looters. With his improved circumstance, he is
able to think-of the curate’s death, which brings up feelings of sadness but not of regret since he did not
foresee it and it is therefore not a crime; of the Martians, whose current location the narrator is unsure of;
and his wife, whom he prays for and misses, with the idea of going to Leatherhead and then tracking her
flight. He remarks that if “nothing else, this war has taught us pity.”
In the morning, he sees the remains of the mass flight from the area. Going further on, the narrator reaches
Wimbledon Common, an open and sunlit area where he is stopped by an armed man who claims the nearby
land and what food remains on it for himself. Suddenly the two men recognize each other-it is the artilleryman
with whom he spent the last night in his house. At this, the artilleryman becomes friendlier and the two move
under the cover of bushes to talk.
The artilleryman says that the Martians have moved past London but from the lights he sees at night he
thinks they have built a new machine and are now capable of flight. At the narrator’s response that there is
nothing stopping the Martians from taking over the world, now that they can move from continent to
continent, the artilleryman tells him that mankind has lost. Though he had not thought of it in such terms
before, the narrator finds it difficult to counter. He does try to argue that he only saw ten shots from the
observatory, but the artilleryman remains convinced that the Martians are continuing to come, just landing in
different areas of the Earth.
The artilleryman has become certain that the Martians’ plan, after taking out society’s organization, is to
capture and selectively breed men, like “edible ants.” Those without any spirit will not mind this new life as
animals and will grow dependent, even adopting a new religion around it.
He on the other hand, has turned back from the crowds rushing south in order to secure food and develop his
idea of the new, independent lifestyle. The artilleryman’s plan is to form a group of strong men and women
and live in London’s underground drains. They would leave the Martians alone, while all the while stacking up
on scientific knowledge so that one day they might overthrow them. He takes the narrator to see the ditch he
has been working on and its lack of progress puts the first dent in the narrator’s acceptance of the
artilleryman’s plans.
Just the same, the narrator works alongside him, while the questions mount in his mind, until the artilleryman
decides after a bit to stop. They go out on the roof of the nearby house and survey the scene around them.
The artilleryman tells him of a story he heard about a party that had been held when the lights of London
came back on. One of the Martian machines watched for some time and then grabbed about 100 drunken
Londoners.
Then the two go down into the cellar of the house, where they eat, drink champagne, and smoke cigars. As
the night wears on, the narrator begins to realize the extent of the artilleryman’s insanity, especially when
they play cards, dividing up London between them. The narrator goes back onto the roof to see the lights of
the Martians but instead sees the purple glow given off by the red weed. He reflects with deep regret over the
time spent with the artilleryman, who has big dreams but little motivation to fulfill them, and sets his mind to
resuming his travels.
Chapter Eight - Dead London
Summary
The way into London has many red weeds, but they are already showing the signs of the disease that will
soon wipe them all out. The streets are quiet, broken only briefly by the sound of burning houses, and become
increasingly dust-covered as the narrator walks on. Many dead bodies lying about are also black from the
dust. Shops have been looted, though it was mostly for food. The only humans the narrator takes note of are
a man covered with dust and quite drunk, and a dirty woman sitting dead on a doorstep.
The repeating sounds of “ulla, ulla” run through the streets, much to the narrator’s perplexity. While trying to
find the source, he comes across a bus that has tipped over and the skeletal remains of a horse. Then his
mind moves on to thoughts of friends from the past and his loneliness.
He eats, drinks, and sleeps in a public-house until dusk, when he resumes his walking. Suddenly he sees the
Martian that has been making the noise. The narrator is curious so he moves closer. A dog with meat in its
mouth hurries past him, while others follow after hungrily. Then he discovers it is a broken handling-machine
and that the meat the dog had was part of a dead Martian. He sees another Martian standing still at a
distance, and it is also silent.
When the “ulla” noise stops abruptly, the narrator feels more alone than ever and becomes scared, staying in
a cabman’s shelter until he is able to go on. With something of a suicidal mindset, the narrator heads towards
a third Martian, but his emotions quickly turn to excitement at the sight of crows around it. He hurries up the
hill and over the mounds that the Martians have piled up about the top of it and looks into the pit.
There he sees birds eating a Martian and dogs fighting over the bodies of 50 Martians. “Ulla” had been the
sound of the last Martian calling out before it, and then the machinery, died. They were killed off by an earthly
disease that man has been able to build up immunity towards, something that the narrator is particularly
excited by. The end to the Martian threat came none too soon as a flying-machine lies among the motionless
machines.
The narrator is overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of the city and thanks God that it will soon be as it
was, as people begin to return. Strongest of all is the thought of his wife.
Chapter Nine - Wreckage
Summary
As it turns out, the narrator was not the first to find out that the Martians had died off but instead one of the
last. The previous night, others had found out and the first man to do so had sent off a telegraph to Paris. The
news spreading joyfully about the world from there and food and men had begun pouring into London soon
after.
The narrator himself does not the three days after his discovery, when he had apparently been wandering
about London insanely until a family took him in. When his mental state became more stable, they told him
that Leatherhead had been wiped out during the early days of his time in the buried house with the curate. He
leaves soon after to return sadly to his old house.
By that time, some shops were open and many people were about but one did not have to look very hard at
them to see the signs of wear. The “Daily News” had already started publishing again, and the narrator buys a
copy that was near red weeds, though the report contains little information except that flying is now
understood, because of the Martians’ flying-machine.
A few days have passed so many people have already returned home and the free trains that are running
(temporary tracks have been laid in parts) are almost empty now. The narrator gets on one and looks out the
window at the destruction that is of varying degrees from town to town. Making his way home, he sees many
sights that remind him of the past weeks under the Martians, particularly the broken dog cart which still lies
where it had fallen over.
He enters the house and walks through it, finding it just as he left it. The paper he had been working on trails
off in the middle of a sentence about what the future holds, so that it now takes on a more significant
meaning. Then he takes a step toward the dining room window and sees his wife and cousin.
They had also returned and stood now in the same shock at the sight of him as he felt. His wife almost faints
and the narrator moves and catches her in his arms.
Chapter Ten - The Epilogue
Summary
The bacteria that killed off the Martians was a known earthly strain and this, along with the apparent lack of
burial rites and their indiscriminate killing seem to indicate that the Martians were unfamiliar with death as we
know it on Earth but nothing is certain. The makeup of the Black-Smoke remains a mystery as does the HeatRay, an examination of which was discouraged. There is still fear of further Martian attacks, though this is
somewhat lessened by evidence to indicate that they may have landed on Venus.
Martians being on Earth did have some positive effects. It disrupted the human sense of security that can lead
towards wasteful behavior. The traditional, limited views of the heavens were broadened so that now even the
thought of men one day expanding to other planets has become more of a possibility. Also, the Martians, less
intentionally, brought about many advances in science and did much to unite mankind.
The narrator frequently lapses into flashbacks of sorts, sparked by observing the activities to people that had
once been so easily accepted as everyday. “And strangest of all is it to hold my wife’s hand again, and to think
that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead.”