![]() To complete the Invisible Man’s inhumanness, when he is finally caught he is likened to a hunted ‘stag,’ which again points to the violent relationship he has with other humans.įrom very early on in the story, the Invisible Man becomes a symbol for fear, anxiety and uncertainty over the unknown. humans you can’t see and even once the Invisible Man reveals that his name is Griffin, the narrator does not consistently use his real human name, suggesting that Griffin’s invisibility is what now defines him and forms his new identity. He seems to have almost created a “new species,” e.g. humanity, not just symbolically and literally through making himself invisible but also through his choices in behaviour. His blood be upon his own head.’ Moreover, Kemp also points out how the Invisible Man has removed himself ‘from his kind,’ e.g. He thinks of nothing but his own advantage’ and later: ‘the man’s become inhuman… He has cut himself off from his kind. Other characters also regard him as inhuman such as his old university friend, Doctor Kemp who says, ‘he is mad… inhuman. ![]() Moreover, the Invisible Man’s lack of feelings is something he identifies himself saying that ‘the intense stress of nearly four years’ continuous work left me incapable of any strength of feeling. His response to is one of ‘detachment’ and he does ‘not feel a bit sorry for… father,’ who he perceives as a ‘victim of his own foolish sentimentality.’ This example emphasises the Invisible Man’s emotionally inappropriate and arguably inhuman response to his own actions and their consequences. For example the Invisible Man admits that in order to finish his work he had to steal money from his own father, an action which caused is father to commit suicide. Although it is intriguing that the Invisible Man’s inhumanness begins before he becomes invisible, though his invisibility exacerbates and accelerates the process. Visibility and the loss of, is an important separate issue which I will look at later, but it seemed a good starting place for looking at what it means to be human and also inhuman – a quality the Invisible Man increasingly exhibits as the story progresses. Additionally, during the aforementioned scene of the Invisible Man’s ironic unmasking, he says ‘You don’t understand… who I am or what I am.’ The last part interested me in particular as it again implies a change in the Invisible’s Man’s human status. Even the Invisible Man sees the absurdity of his initial disguise saying, ‘And for this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed and bandaged caricature of a man,’ with the word ‘caricature’ once again intimating that he is less human. ![]() It’s just empty clothes,’ thereby reversing the popular phrase of ‘clothes make the man’ (which goes as far back as Ancient Greece) and suggests that a lack of visibility (in terms of the Invisible Man’s body) negates the Invisible Man’s claims to being human. When the Invisible Man reveals to the inhabitants of Iping the fact he is invisible, one character responds by saying ‘that’s not a man at all. How important is being visible to being human? The more and more I read of The Invisible Man, the more this question seemed to present itself. 1: Identity – What does it mean to be human? So for the rest of this post I am going to be looking at 7 ways to read to this novel… ![]() Wells tells a good story but I also think he uses his story as vehicle for exploring a number of big issues. The horror of his fate has affected his mind, however – and when Kemp refuse to help, he resolves to wreak his revenge. Forced from the village, and driven to murder, he seeks the aid of an old friend, Kemp. But the true reason for his disguise is far more chilling: he has developed a process that has made him invisible, and is locked in a struggle to discover the antidote. With his face swaddled in bandages, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses and his hands covered even indoors, Griffin – the new guest at The Coach and Horses – is at first assumed to be a shy accident-victim. Below is the blurb from the Penguin Classics edition (2005) of the novel to remind or introduce you to the story’s premise: However, apart from the fact it is a really good read, I think a case can be made for it also being a psychological crime narrative of sorts, which tracks the journey one man takes into criminality and madness, whilst pursuing a scientific experiment. I’m probably chancing my arm writing a post about Wells’ The Invisible Man (1897) on a crime fiction blog, as it is a work of science fiction.
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