Homer and War of the Worlds
Several people have emailed me about speculation involving Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, demanding additional proof that Spielberg used the Chronos myth as one of his central themes or for that matter, used myth at all. (see Part II of It’s About Time for a detailed explanation of how War of the Worlds fits with the Chronos Myth).
I’m not certain that Spielberg intended to use myths or merely tapped into the same collective unconscious as all great writers do when developing plot and character. But the patterns are so evident that I am speculating that the use is intentional – and that a good portion of the film is a dream.
This film is told from a subjective point of view. This means that we are experiencing the film though the senses of the main character – except for the opening sequence and the closing sequence, there is not a scene in this movie in which Ray is not present – and we ride through the movie looking at the details of the world through his eyes.
This means that we must rely on him to provide us with what is real and not real, and we are saddled with his prejudices and fears.
The war of worlds is the reflection of the internal conflicts going inside the main characters. This film is about him inside and out, and how he resolves issues.
It is my contention that he came home from work one day, was confronted with his daily problems, went to sleep, and dreamed what we see as the science fiction elements – through which he resolved these issues. Because we are limited to what he knows and sees, we experience the dream as if real, just as he does.
Myths play a huge role in our lives, as Freud pointed out, because they tap into the unconscious fears and desires and allow us to look at them in other terms.
I suspect that we have numerous myths going on at the same time – and that if intentional, the writers seem to have tapped one myth for each of Ray’s significant relationships: with his ex-wife, his daughter, and most importantly his son – just in the same way Homer did in developing the Odysseys.
There are a lot of similarities between the Odyssey and War of the Worlds, which Spielberg may not have intended, but derived from work of H.G.Wells – who used them in most of his word – although I suspect Spielberg and his staff were savvy enough to be conscious of Wells inspiration and heightened the effect of the movie by emphasizing the same Greek myths which inspired Wells and Homer.
The structure of the movie and the book resemble the Odyssey as well – although Spielberg varies from both in that he contains the point of view to one character where in the book and in Homer’s poem, the view is divided into two points of view. The Odyssey has two main characters, Odysseus and his son, Telemacos
Odyssey is a story of father and son, of a son who lives in the shadow of his father’s greatness and is seeking to find distinction of his own. This is true of Ray’s son, Robbie, although Ray hardly qualifies as a great man in larger society. Yet in his neighborhood, to his friends, he is. Street urchins admire him. The gas station owner respects his skill as a mechanic.
Odysseus is described in Homer as “a man of twists and turns driven time and again off course,” someone charged with the safe return of his companions yet “he could not save them from disaster.”
Ray has been charged with the safety of his kids, and is locked into a similar battle facing many of the same monsters.
In the Odyssey, all the survivors of the Trojan Wars “who avoided headlong death” were already safe at home.
Odysseus angered the God Poseidon by blinding the one-eyed Cyclops, one of Poseidon’s sons. While Poseidon was not permitted to kill Odysseus, he diverted him, keeping him from reaching home, his wife and his son.
In Newark, one of Ray’s companions talks about God putting a curse on the neighborhood – a possible allusion to this point.
In Homer’s tale, Odysseus is divorced from his wife by distance; the same can be said for Ray who is literally divorced.
Odysseus in the opening scene of Homer’s tale is trapped on an island with a nymph. Ray also has women trouble.
Odysseus is a notorious liar, full of tall tales for which the gods and men admire him, Ray is also a liar – as is his son Robbie.
Telemacos is said to resemble his father in many ways. Robbie resembles Ray in many personality traits.
Ray like Odysseus is skilled in the use of machines. In fact, Odysseus is seen as the best in his craft – just as Ray is at the sea port where he unloads containers.
The sea port itself provides a kind of clue to the connection, but there are stronger structural connections.
As with the Odyssey, the film War of the Worlds is divided into two parts: reality and fantasy portions. In the Odyssey, we get the most real scenes at the beginning and the end. This is also true of War of the Worlds.
One important difference is the single point of view – we do not see Robbie’s passage of manhood the way we do Telemacos in the Odyssey, which is why there seems to be a gap in War of the Worlds.
In telling his tale, Homer makes use of the great Greek myths to make his points – and in some cases, some of the feats Odysseus accomplishes during the fantasy portion are variations on these myths.
As in the Odyssey, the fantasy elements of War of the Worlds begins with the journey – and in many cases, both tales, Spielberg’s and Homer’s seem to cover the same ground. Where as Odysseus must resist the deceptive call of Sirens that would lead him to doom, Ray faces newscasters. Ray like Odysseus clings to his vessel only to lose it. He like Homer’s hero faces ship wreck, beastly hog-like people and eventually those who would eat him and his companions. We even get Ray killing the one-eyed monster the way Odysseus did.
Perhaps the most important clues to this relationship between Homer and Spielberg comes from the theme of the Odyssey. Homer was creating at a time when Greek society was coming out of a dark age, and he was defining what it means to live in a civilized society. In particular how guests should be treated, how guests should act and the concept of manners.
War of the Worlds is loaded with similar references, with many of the scenes making similar points.
Ray rejects his boss’s pleas to come in early. Ray gets back later than he told his wife. While Ray mocks his wife for not teaching Robbie better manners, Ray neglects to help his daughter carry her bag into the house, forcing his pregnant ex-wife to do so.
In Homer’s tale, witches seek to lure Odysseus’ men to their doom, while his men violate rules of behavior by feeding on prohibited beasts. In Spielberg, Ray tries to provide for his children with peanut butter sandwiches setting up a scene with news people feeding off the dead. The ferry operators invite people onboard, then close the doors on them, and – as Homer put it – “could not save them from disaster.”
The invitation by the Tim Robbins character seems strange in the context of the overt story, but has remarkable context if seen as yet one more example of a poor host, who has invited his guests in for purposes other than kindness.
Both works by Homer and Spielberg seem endowed with myth – acting as examples of how people should and should not behave. Two myths that seem to be most prevalent in War of the Worlds are the Myth of Medusa – which deals with Ray’s problems with women and the Chronos Myth, which deals with problems he has with his son. Although I have already speculated on Chronos, Part II of It’s About Time will provide a more detailed analysis. Does Spielberg use myth consciously? I believe he does.