The Invisible Man

Summary

Early one February a stranger, wrapped from head to foot, his face hidden by bandages, blue spectacles and a false pink nose, staggers through the snow into the Coach and Horses inn at Iping, a Sussex village, and takes rooms from the landlady, Mrs. Hall. He unpacks crates of bottles, works at chemistry behind a locked door, and snaps at everyone who intrudes. The village gossips: the clockmender Teddy Henfrey, the general practitioner Cuss, the vicar Mr. Bunting and the regulars at the bar all form theories. The vicarage is burgled by someone nobody can see, the furniture in the stranger's room flies at Mr. and Mrs. Hall, and when Mrs. Hall at last demands payment he tears off his wrappings and shows that there is nothing inside them. On Whit Monday he fights off the constable Jaffers and half the village, then vanishes. On the downs he seizes a tramp, Thomas Marvel, as an unwilling servant to carry his clothes, money and three precious notebooks. Marvel runs from him at Port Stowe to the Jolly Cricketers inn in Burdock, and the wounded Invisible Man takes refuge in the house of Dr. Kemp, a scientist he had known as a student. There he reveals himself as Griffin, a young albino physicist of University College who left medicine for the study of light, found a way to make living tissue transparent, robbed his father to finish the work (the father, who had used money not his own, shot himself), tried the drugs on a cat and then on himself in a London lodging, and set fire to the house to hide his traces. His account of London in winter, cold, naked, hunted by dogs and betrayed by snow and mud, hiding in Omniums department store and robbing a costumier in Drury Lane, shows invisibility as a misery more than a power. Griffin asks Kemp to be his confederate in a Reign of Terror; Kemp has already written secretly to Colonel Adye of the Burdock police. Griffin escapes, kills Mr. Wicksteed, the steward of Lord Burdock, with an iron rod, and sends Kemp a letter announcing the first day of his new epoch. He breaks into Kemp's house and shoots Adye, but Kemp runs down the hill into the town, the crowd closes on the unseen attacker, and a navvy's spade and many fists kill him. Slowly his battered body becomes visible on the road. In the epilogue Marvel keeps an inn named The Invisible Man and pores over the unreadable notebooks at night. The novel was serialized in Pearson's Weekly in June and July 1897 and published in book form by C. Arthur Pearson the same year, with the subtitle A Grotesque Romance.

Plot or Argument

• Chapters I-III: The stranger at the Coach and Horses

  A bandaged guest arrives at Iping in a snowstorm, frightens Mrs. Hall and Teddy Henfrey, and sets up a laboratory of bottles in the parlour, while the carrier's dog tears his glove and trouser and a bystander glimpses something strange.

• Chapters IV-VI: Curiosity and strange happenings

  Cuss forces an interview and grips an empty sleeve; the vicarage is robbed by an unseen thief; the furniture in the stranger's bedroom attacks the Halls, and the village begins to speak of spirits.

• Chapters VII-VIII: The unveiling

  On Whit Monday, pressed for his bill, the stranger unwraps himself and shows a headless figure; Jaffers tries to arrest him, the village joins the fight, and he slips away naked and invisible.

• Chapters IX-XVI: Mr. Marvel and the flight to Burdock

  The Invisible Man bullies the tramp Thomas Marvel into his service, recovers his books from Cuss and Bunting, and wrecks Iping in a rage; Marvel bolts at Port Stowe and reaches the Jolly Cricketers, where the Invisible Man is shot at and wounded.

• Chapters XVII-XVIII: Dr. Kemp's visitor

  The fugitive enters Kemp's house in Burdock, names himself as Griffin, a former fellow student, and sleeps while Kemp reads the newspapers and writes to Colonel Adye.

• Chapters XIX-XXIII: Griffin's story

  Griffin tells of his research into optical density, the theft from his father and the father's suicide, the trial on a white cat, the painful night of his own transformation, the fire in Great Portland Street, and his wretched days in Oxford Street, Omniums store and a Drury Lane theatrical shop.

• Chapters XXIV-XXVI: The plan that failed

  Griffin proposes a Reign of Terror; the police arrive and he escapes; Kemp directs the hunt across the countryside, and Griffin kills Mr. Wicksteed with an iron rod.

• Chapters XXVII-XXVIII: The siege and the end

  Griffin's letter declares the Epoch of the Invisible Man and condemns Kemp; he besieges Kemp's house and shoots Adye, then chases Kemp into Burdock, where the crowd beats him to death and his body slowly becomes visible.

• The Epilogue

  Thomas Marvel, now landlord of an inn called The Invisible Man near Port Stowe, keeps Griffin's cipher notebooks hidden and studies them on Sunday nights without understanding them.

Characters

• Griffin, the Invisible Man

  Brilliant albino physicist who makes himself invisible and, isolated and desperate, turns to theft, terror and murder.

• Dr. Kemp, Griffin's former fellow student

  Burdock scientist who hears Griffin's confession, refuses his plan and directs the hunt for him.

• Mrs. Hall, landlady of the Coach and Horses

  Iping innkeeper delighted by a winter guest until his habits and unpaid bill exhaust her patience.

• Mr. Hall, her husband

  Landlord who distrusts the guest from the start and tells his wife to look closely at his luggage.

• Thomas Marvel, tramp

  Shabby wanderer forced to serve the Invisible Man, who escapes him and keeps his notebooks.

• Cuss, Iping general practitioner

  Curious village doctor who grips an empty sleeve and runs to the vicar in a panic.

• Mr. Bunting, vicar of Iping

  Clergyman whose house is burgled and who tries with Cuss to read Griffin's books.

• Teddy Henfrey, clock-jobber

  Village tradesman whose visit to mend the clock first spreads talk about the stranger.

• Colonel Adye, chief of the Burdock police

  Officer whom Kemp summons and whom Griffin shoots during the siege.

• Mr. Wicksteed, steward to Lord Burdock

  Inoffensive man killed by Griffin with an iron rod on his way home.

• Jaffers, village constable

  Policeman who tries to arrest a man he cannot see.

Lessons

• Discovery without a conscience

  Griffin's discovery is real and brilliant, but he pursues it in secret, steals from his father to finance it, and never asks what it is for until it is done. Wells shows that a gift for science gives no protection against selfishness; the same mind that solves optical density plans a Reign of Terror. Knowledge needs a moral frame that the knower brings to it.

  • At what moment in his story could Griffin have turned back, and why did he not?
  • Kemp urges Griffin to publish his results and take the world into his confidence. Why does Griffin refuse?
  • Is a discovery good or bad in itself, or only in its use?

• The loneliness of being unseen

  Griffin boasts that his great moments came when he was alone, yet invisibility cuts him off from food, clothing, shelter and every human tie. In London he learns that he can take whatever he wants but cannot enjoy any of it. Too late he tells Kemp that a man can do very little alone.

  • What ordinary comforts does Griffin lose in London in winter?
  • Why does Griffin need a confederate, first Marvel and then Kemp?
  • Does Griffin's isolation cause his cruelty, or does his cruelty deepen his isolation?

• The ring of Gyges made modern

  Plato asked what a man would do if he could act unseen; Wells answers with a physicist who steals, burns a house, binds a shopkeeper and kills a stranger. The book suggests that the fear of being seen restrains more than we admit, and that character shows most plainly when no one is watching.

  • Which of Griffin's crimes would he probably not have committed if he could be seen?
  • How do the villagers of Iping behave when they cannot see what they are fighting?
  • What would you do with invisibility, and what does your answer reveal?

• Comedy and terror in one story

  The Iping chapters are rural comedy: gossiping villagers, a vicar in his dressing-gown, a tramp arguing with a voice. The London and Burdock chapters are grim. Wells's mixture, which he called a grotesque romance, lets the reader laugh at the village and then see how small, ordinary people bear the cost of one man's ambition.

  • Find a scene in the early chapters that is funny and explain what makes it so.
  • When does the tone of the book change, and how can you tell?

Context

The Invisible Man belongs to the burst of scientific romances Wells wrote in the late 1890s, after The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau. It appeared just after Röntgen's discovery of X-rays (1895), when the idea of seeing through flesh was in the newspapers, and it draws on Wells's own science training and his years as a poor student and teacher. Griffin's optics, with its talk of refractive index and light passing through bodies, is presented as plausible physics rather than magic, while the Sussex village and the market town of Burdock are drawn with the realism of contemporary English comic fiction.

Composition

The novel was serialized in Pearson's Weekly in June and July 1897 and published as a book in London by C. Arthur Pearson in 1897, with the subtitle A Grotesque Romance. The library text, from Project Gutenberg #5230, has twenty-eight chapters and an epilogue.

Reception

The book became one of Wells's most popular, and the invisible man became a stock figure of popular culture. James Whale's 1933 Universal film, with Claude Rains as Griffin, followed the novel's outline closely, and many later films, plays and comic adaptations borrowed the bandages and dark glasses. Readers have long linked Griffin with Plato's ring of Gyges and with the scientist-overreacher of Frankenstein.

Comparisons

• frankenstein

  Victor Frankenstein and Griffin both work in secret, cut off from family, on a discovery that rebounds on them; Shelley's creature is the outcast victim, while Wells makes the scientist himself the outcast who becomes the monster.

• the-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde

  Jekyll and Griffin both take a drug that frees them from the restraint of being recognized, and both slide from experiment into violence; Stevenson divides the self, while Wells simply removes the face.

• the-war-of-the-worlds

  Wells's next scientific romance moves terror from a single man to invaders from Mars and again shows ordinary English townspeople, here in Surrey, struggling to grasp a power they cannot understand.

• the-time-machine

  Both books frame an impossible discovery in plausible scientific talk and let the inventor tell his own story to a listener, but the Time Traveller seeks knowledge of humanity's future, while Griffin seeks power over his neighbours.

• the-republic

  In Book II Glaucon tells of the shepherd Gyges, whose ring makes him invisible and who uses it to seize a throne; Griffin is a nineteenth-century answer to Glaucon's question of whether anyone would stay just if he could never be seen.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The bandages, blue spectacles and false nose in Chapter I, and every clue the villagers miss.
• The unveiling in Chapter VII, when the stranger takes off his face before the crowd.
• Griffin's single sentence about his father in Chapter XIX, and how little he says about it.
• Griffin's discovery in Chapters XXI-XXIII that he can take what he wants but enjoy nothing.
• Kemp's choice in Chapter XVIII to write to Colonel Adye while his guest sleeps.

Key terms and names

Iping

The small Sussex village where the stranger lodges at the Coach and Horses in the first half of the novel.

Refractive index

The measure of how much a substance bends light; Griffin's discovery is a way of making the body's tissues match the refractive index of air.

Albino

A person lacking normal pigment; Griffin is one, which is why only his colourless body can be made fully transparent.

Confederate

A partner in a secret plan; Griffin wants first Marvel and then Kemp to serve as his.

Reign of Terror

Griffin's phrase, borrowed from the French Revolution, for his plan to rule Burdock by threat and murder.

Grotesque romance

Wells's subtitle for the book, pointing to its blend of the comic, the strange and the horrible.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does the stranger do at the Coach and Horses that makes Mrs. Hall and the villagers suspicious?
2. Comprehension How did Griffin pay for the last stage of his research, and what happened to his father?
3. Comprehension What hardships does Griffin meet in London once he is invisible?
4. Interpretation Griffin says his great moments came when he was alone, and later says a man can do little alone. What has he learned between the two statements, and what has he failed to learn?
5. Interpretation Why does Wells let Griffin tell his own story to Kemp in the middle of the book instead of beginning with it?
6. Interpretation Is Kemp a loyal citizen or a false friend when he betrays Griffin to the police?
7. Interpretation What does the crowd's killing of Griffin in Burdock show about the people who have feared him?
8. Big Question If no one could ever see what you did, would you still be the same person?

Faith Connections

• Psalm 139:11-12 (Scripture)

  The psalmist knows that darkness hides nothing from God. Griffin trusts that being unseen frees him from every judgment, but the psalm assumes a Seer whom no invisibility can escape.

• Luke 12:2-3 (Scripture)

  Jesus warns that nothing covered shall not be revealed. Griffin's crimes are done in secret, yet at his death his body is slowly uncovered before the whole crowd.

• Exodus 20:12 (Scripture)

  Griffin dishonours his father by robbing him and then treats the father's death as an inconvenience; the commandment frames the first and coldest of his crimes.

• Plato, Republic II (the ring of Gyges) (Great Conversation)

  Glaucon argues that anyone given a ring of invisibility would act unjustly, and Socrates spends the rest of the dialogue answering him. Wells's novel can be read as a test case for Glaucon's claim.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Griffin assumes that power freed from observation will bring freedom and happiness. But invisibility removes the shelter, clothing, food and companionship that make life bearable, and without the restraint of being seen his ambition hardens into cruelty. Therefore knowledge pursued alone and without moral limit destroys the knower and harms the innocent.

Rhetorical device: frame and embedded narrative. Chapters I-XVIII show the Invisible Man from outside through the comic eyes of villagers; Chapters XIX-XXIII switch to Griffin's own first-person account to Kemp, so the reader hears the scientist justify what the village has already suffered.

Debate: Resolved: that Kemp was right to betray Griffin's trust to Colonel Adye.

Memory Work

I made a mistake, Kemp, a huge mistake, in carrying this thing through alone. I have wasted strength, time, opportunities. Alone—it is wonderful how little a man can do alone!

And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man—the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks I saw none.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Is Griffin destroyed by his discovery or by his character? Use the theft from his father, the London chapters and the Reign of Terror letter to argue your answer.

Comparison with Frankenstein: Compare Griffin and Victor Frankenstein as scientists who work in secret: what each wants, how each treats his family, and who becomes the monster in each story.

Medical Lens

Griffin began as a medical student before turning to physics, and his invisibility is produced by drugs and radiation acting on living tissue, so the novel imagines a pharmacological process with a physiology of its own. He tries the method first on a white cat, which howls until he chloroforms it, and then on himself in a London lodging; he describes a night of fever, sickness and fainting and watches his bones, arteries and nerves fade in sequence, an order that the narrator reverses when the dead body reappears. Before the experiment Griffin records exhaustion, apathy and want of sleep after nearly four years' work and calls the project a fixed idea that ruled him, language close to the period's notion of monomania. Kemp, reading the newspaper reports, says the story reads like rage growing to mania, and later calls him mad, inhuman and pure selfishness; whether Griffin is meant as mentally ill or simply wicked is left open, and any modern diagnosis is the reader's interpretation, not Wells's. The village general practitioner Cuss supplies a comic portrait of a country doctor overcome by panic. The story of the father who shot himself after Griffin stole money that was not his is told in one flat sentence, which marks how far Griffin's obsession has narrowed his feeling. For a history-of-medicine reader the book is also an early fictional treatment of self-experimentation and the ethics of a researcher answerable to no one.

• Chapter IV, Mr. Cuss Interviews the Stranger

  The Iping general practitioner forces his way into the stranger's room, grips an empty sleeve and runs to the vicar asking whether he is mad.

  Physicians Doctors
• Chapter XIX, Certain First Principles

  Griffin tells of robbing his father to pay for his research and of the father's suicide.

  Suicide Medical Ethics
• Chapter XX, At the House in Great Portland Street

  Griffin describes overwork and sleeplessness, the trial of his process on a cat, and the painful night in which his own body becomes transparent.

  Pharmacology Poisons Pain Sleep Insomnia Obsession Monomania
• Chapter XXVIII, The Hunter Hunted

  After his death Griffin's body reappears from the extremities inward, nerves, then bones and arteries, then flesh and skin.

  Death Dying

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Make a two-column chart of what Griffin expected invisibility to give him in Chapter XIX and what it actually cost him in Chapters XX-XXIII.

• Fiction

  Write the scene in the bar of the Coach and Horses on the evening after the unveiling, told by Teddy Henfrey to a traveller who does not believe a word.

• Dialogue

  Stage Kemp's conversation with Colonel Adye in Chapter XXV, in which Kemp must explain why he betrayed a man who trusted him.

• Essay

  Was Kemp right to write secretly to Colonel Adye while Griffin slept in his house?

Further Reading

• The Island of Doctor Moreau, H. G. Wells

  Wells's previous romance of a scientist working beyond all restraint.

• The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells

• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

• The Republic, Plato

  Book II, the ring of Gyges.