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The Narrator’s Brother
The unnamed woman who is married to the narrator. After Ogilvy is killed by the Martians, the narrator stumbles home, panicked and exhausted. When he starts telling his wife what has happened, her face go white with fear. “They can scarcely move,” he says reassuringly, explaining to her what Ogilvy told him about Earth’s gravitational force and how it will affect the Martians. Several days after the Martians first arrive, the narrator and his wife decide to flee to Leatherhead, where some of their relatives live—but because the countryside has been plunged into chaos, this proves a difficult task. In order to make a successful escape, the narrator borrows a horse and dogcart from an innkeeper, promising that he’ll return it by midnight. For this reason, the narrator is forced to leave his wife in Leatherhead so that he can return the dogcart. By the time the narrator returns to Woking, however, the situation has grown far more dangerous, and as a result he remains separated from his wife until the very end of the novel. Finding her again becomes his ultimate goal, even when he knows it’s likely that she has been killed. When the Martians finally succumb to earthly bacteria, though, he finds his way back to his home in Woking, and upon surveying the wreckage, he hears her voice behind him and rejoices at the fact that she’s still alive.
The Narrator’s Wife Quotes in The War of the Worlds
The The War of the Worlds quotes below are all either spoken by The Narrator’s Wife or refer to The Narrator’s Wife. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 1, Chapter 7
Quotes
I began to comfort her and myself by repeating all that Ogilvy had told me of the impossibility of the Martians establishing themselves on the earth. In particular I laid stress on the gravitational difficulty. On the surface of the earth the force of gravity is three times what it is on the surface of Mars. A Martian, therefore, would weigh three times more than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength would be the same. His own body would be a cope of lead to him. That, indeed, was the general opinion. Both the Times and the Daily Telegraph, for instance, insisted on it the next morning, and both overlooked, just as I did, two obvious modifying influences. […]
But I did not consider these points at the time, and so my reasoning was dead against the chances of the invaders. With wine and food, the confidence of my own table, and the necessity of reassuring my wife, I grew by insensible degrees courageous and secure.
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The Narrator’s Wife Quotes in The War of the Worlds
The The War of the Worlds quotes below are all either spoken by The Narrator’s Wife or refer to The Narrator’s Wife. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 1, Chapter 7
Quotes
I began to comfort her and myself by repeating all that Ogilvy had told me of the impossibility of the Martians establishing themselves on the earth. In particular I laid stress on the gravitational difficulty. On the surface of the earth the force of gravity is three times what it is on the surface of Mars. A Martian, therefore, would weigh three times more than on Mars, albeit his muscular strength would be the same. His own body would be a cope of lead to him. That, indeed, was the general opinion. Both the Times and the Daily Telegraph, for instance, insisted on it the next morning, and both overlooked, just as I did, two obvious modifying influences. […]
But I did not consider these points at the time, and so my reasoning was dead against the chances of the invaders. With wine and food, the confidence of my own table, and the necessity of reassuring my wife, I grew by insensible degrees courageous and secure.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
