Pattern 1: Numbness about terror

“I could not understand how I came there. My terror had fallen from me like a garment.” (pg. 31)

“It was sometime before my blank astonishment would let me struggle up the bank to a drier position, or think at all of my imminent peril.” (pg.48)

“I fell helplessly, in full sight of the Martians… I expected nothing but death.” (pg. 66)

“For a long time my brother stared out the window in blank astonishment” (pg. 81)

Pattern 2: Slowness/Calmness of Martians

“There was still a fixed idea that these monsters must be sluggish: ‘crawling,’ ‘creeping painfully’” (pg. 75)

“’They are the most sluggish things I ever saw crawl.’” (pg. 33)

“The glittering Martians went to and fro, calmly and methodically spreading their poison-cloud over this patch of country” (pg. 105)