INDEX

1) About the author

2) About the theme of the novel
3) About the characters
4) Plot
5) Review
6) Bibliography
My name is Naman Sharma and this is a brief review on
the classic novel “The Invisible Man” by H G Wells. The
Invisible Man is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells.
Originally serialized in Pearson's weekly in 1897, it was
published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to
whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has
devoted himself to research into optics and who invents
a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so
that it neither absorbs nor reflects light. He carries out
this procedure on himself and renders himself invisible,
but fails in his attempt to reverse it. A practitioner of
random and irresponsible violence, Griffin has become
an iconic character in horror fiction.
 1) About the author

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946)

was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote more
than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction
output included works of social commentary, politics, history,
popular science, satire, biography and autobiography. Wells is
now best remembered for his science fiction novels and has
been called the "father of science fiction. Some of his early
novels, called "scientific romances", invented several themes
now classic in science fiction in such works as The Time
Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The
War of the Worlds, When the Sleeper Wakes, and The First
Men in the Moon. He also wrote realistic novels that received
critical acclaim, including Kipps and a critique of English culture
during the Edwardian period, Tono-Bungay. Wells also wrote
dozens of short stories and novellas, including, "The Flowering
of the Strange Orchid", which helped bring the full impact
of Darwin's revolutionary botanical ideas to a wider public, and
was followed by many later successes such as "The Country of
the Blind" . The science fiction historian John Clute describes
Wells as "the most important writer the genre has yet seen",
and notes his work has been central to both British and
American science fiction.
 2) About the theme of the novel
The main theme of this novel is that how greed can cause inadvertent
consequences. This is a novel about how a man with his research became
invisible; he becomes so mad of being indivisible. He became so perilous that he
started hurting people, and not even thinking of becoming visible again but at the
end he got caught and by the people. If he uses his power wisely it can be more
beneficial for him and the society also, but he chose the wrong path. That’s why
with the great power, there comes the responsibility also. Invisible Man is the
story of a young man searching for his identity, unsure about where to turn to
define himself. As the narrator states at the novel’s beginning, “All my life I had
been looking for something, and everywhere I turned somebody tried to tell me
what it was.” It is undoubtedly clear that the narrator’s blackness comprises a
large part of his identity, although this isn’t something he has necessarily chosen.
For others in the novel, it is simply convenient to define the narrator through his
blackness.

Ellison’s narrator explains that the outcome of this is a phenomenon he calls

“invisibility”—the idea that he is simply “not seen” by his oppressors. Ellison
implies that if racists really saw their victims, they would not act the way they do.
The narrator recognizes his invisibility slowly—in moments like the hospital
machine, when he realizes he is being asked to respond to the question of who he
is in terms of his blackness. Ultimately, the narrator is forced to retreat to his
hole, siphoning off the light from the white-owned power company, itself a
symbol of an underground resistance that may go unacknowledged for a long
time.

However, invisibility doesn’t come from racism alone. Just as poisonous for the
narrator are other generalized ways of thinking about identity—ideas that
envision him as a cog in a machine instead of a unique individual. This is true for
the narrator both at the unnamed black university and at Liberty Paints. However,
it is the Brotherhood, a thinly veiled take on the Communist Party, that proves to
be most disillusioning for the narrator. The Brotherhood provides a systematic
way of thinking about the world that claims to be the solution to racism and
inequality.

When the narrator first meets Brother Jack, Jack says, “You mustn’t waste your
emotions on individuals, they don’t count.” At first, the narrator embraces this
ideology of the Brotherhood and structures his identity around it. However, he
comes to discover that the Brotherhood is perfectly willing to sacrifice him for its
own potentially flawed ends. Thus the novel can be read not only as a story about
a black man’s struggle against racism, but a black man’s struggle to grow up and
learn to be himself, against the backdrop of intense social pressures, racism
among others.
 3) About the characters

The narrator

The narrator is the nameless protagonist of the novel. The narrator is the
“invisible man” of the title. A Black man in 1930s America, the narrator considers
himself invisible because people never see his true self beneath the roles that
stereotype and racial prejudice compel him to play. Though the narrator is
intelligent, deeply introspective, and highly gifted with language, the experiences
that he relates demonstrate that he was naïve in his youth. As the novel
progresses, the narrator’s illusions are gradually destroyed through his
experiences as a student at college, as a worker at the Liberty Paints plant, and as
a member of a political organization known as the Brotherhood. Shedding his
blindness, he struggles to arrive at a conception of his identity that honors his
complexity as an individual without sacrificing social responsibility.

Brother Jack

The white and blindly loyal leader of the Brotherhood, a political organization that
professes to defend the rights of the socially oppressed. Although he initially
seems compassionate, intelligent, and kind, and he claims to uphold the rights of
the socially oppressed,

Tod Clifton

A Black member of the Brotherhood and a resident of Harlem. Tod Clifton is

passionate, handsome, articulate, and intelligent. He eventually parts ways with
the Brotherhood, though it remains unclear whether a falling-out has taken place,
or whether he has simply become disillusioned with the group.
Ras the Exhorter

A stout, flamboyant, charismatic, angry man with a flair for public agitation. Ras
represents the Black nationalist movement, which advocates the violent
overthrow of white supremacy. 

Sybil

A white woman whom the narrator attempts to use to find out information about
the Brotherhood. Sybil instead uses the narrator to act out her fantasy of being
raped by a “savage” Black man.

Rinehart

A surreal figure who never appears in the book except by reputation. Rinehart
possesses a seemingly infinite number of identities, among them pimp, bookie,
and preacher who speaks on the subject of “invisibility.” 

Dr. Bledsoe

The president at the narrator’s college. Dr. Bledsoe proves selfish, ambitious, and
treacherous. He is a Black man who puts on a mask of servility to the white
community. Driven by his desire to maintain his status and power, he declares
that he would see every Black man in the country lynched before he would give
up his position of authority.

Mr. Norton

One of the wealthy white trustees at the narrator’s college. Mr. Norton is a
narcissistic man who treats the narrator as a tally on his scorecard—that is, as
proof that he is liberal-minded and philanthropic.

Reverend Homer A. Barbee

A preacher from Chicago who visits the narrator’s college. Reverend Barbee’s
fervent praise of the Founder’s “vision” strikes an inadvertently ironic note,
because he himself is blind.
The veteran

An institutionalized Black man who makes bitterly insightful remarks about race
relations. Claiming to be a graduate of the narrator’s college, the veteran tries to
expose the pitfalls of the school’s ideology. His bold candor angers both the
narrator and Mr. Norton—the veteran exposes their blindness and hypocrisy and
points out the sinister nature of their relationship. 

Mary

A serene and motherly Black woman with whom the narrator stays after learning
that the Men’s House has banned him. Mary treats him kindly and even lets him
stay for free. She nurtures his Black identity and urges him to become active in
the fight for racial equality.
 4) Plot
A mysterious man, Griffin, referred to as 'the stranger', arrives at the local inn
owned by Mr. and Mrs. Hall of the English village of Iping, West Sussex, during a
snowstorm. The stranger wears a long-sleeved, thick coat and gloves; his face is
hidden entirely by bandages except for a prosthetic nose, and he wears a wide-
brimmed hat. He is excessively reclusive, irascible, unfriendly, and introverted. He
demands to be left alone and spends most of his time in his rooms working with a
set of chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at night. He also
causes a lot of accidents, but when Mrs. Hall addresses this, the stranger angrily
demands that the cost of the damage be put on his bill. While Griffin is staying at
the inn, hundreds of strange glass bottles arrive. Many local townspeople believe
this to be very odd. He becomes the talk of the village with many theorizing as to
his origins.

Meanwhile, a mysterious burglary occurs in the village. Griffin is running out of

money and is trying to find a way to pay for his board and lodging. When his
landlady demands that he pay his bill and quit the premises, he reveals his
invisibility to her in a fit of anger. An attempt to apprehend the stranger by police
officer Jaffers is thwarted when he undresses to take advantage of his invisibility,
fights off his would-be captors, and flees to the South Downs.

There Griffin coerces a tramp, Thomas Marvel, to become his assistant. With
Marvel, he returns to the village to recover three notebooks that contain records
of his experiments. Marvel attempts to betray the Invisible Man, who threatens to
kill him. Marvel escapes to the seaside town of Port Burdock, pursued to a local
inn by the Invisible Man, who is shot by one of the bar patrons.

The Invisible Man takes shelter in a nearby house that turns out to belong to Dr.
Kemp, a former acquaintance from medical school. To Kemp, he reveals his true
identity. Griffin is an albino former medical student who left medicine to devote
himself to optics.

Griffin tells Kemp the story of how he invented chemicals capable of rendering
bodies invisible, which he first tried on a cat, then himself, how he burned down
the boarding house he was staying in to cover his tracks, found himself ill-
equipped to survive in the open, eventually stole some clothing from a theatrical
supply shop on Drury Lane, and then headed to Iping to attempt to reverse the
invisibility. Having been driven somewhat unhinged by the procedure and his
experiences, he now imagines that he can make Kemp his secret confederate,
describing a plan to use his invisibility to terrorise the nation.

Kemp has already denounced Griffin to the local authorities, led by Port Burdock's
chief of police, Colonel Adye, and is waiting for help to arrive as he listens to this
wild proposal. When Adye and his men arrive at Kemp's house, Griffin fights his
way out and the next day leaves a note announcing that Kemp himself will be the
first man to be killed in the "Reign of Terror". Kemp, a cool-headed character,
tries to organise a plan to use himself as bait to trap the Invisible Man, but a note
that he sends is stolen from his servant by Griffin. During the chase the invisible
Griffin arms himself with an iron bar and kills a bystander.

Griffin shoots Adye, then breaks into Kemp's house. Adye's constables fend him
off and Kemp bolts for the town, where the local citizenry come to his aid. Still
obsessed with killing Kemp, Griffin nearly strangles the doctor but he is cornered,
seized, and savagely beaten by the enraged mob, his last words a desperate cry
for mercy. Despite Griffin's murderous actions, Kemp urges the mob to stand
away and tries to save the life of his assailant, though unsuccessfully. The Invisible
Man's battered body gradually becomes visible as he dies, pitiable in the stillness
of death. A local policeman shouts to have someone cover Griffin's face with a
sheet.

In the epilogue, it is revealed that Marvel has secretly kept Griffin's notes and—
with the help of the stolen money—has now become a successful business owner,
running the "Invisible Man Inn". However, when not running his inn, Marvel sits in
his office trying to decipher the notes in the hopes of one day recreating Griffin's
work. Because several pages were accidentally washed clean during Marvel's
chase of Griffin, and the remaining notes are coded in Greek and Latin, and
Marvel has no comprehension of even the basic mathematical symbols he sees in
the notes, he is completely incapable of understanding them.
 5) Review
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells is a science fiction classic written in 1897. The
novella was first serialized in Pearson's Weekly the same year it was published.

Griffin is a scientist who devotes himself to the field of optics. While working in his
research Griffin discovers that he can change the body's refractive index to absorb
all light and reflect none, which makes him invisible. The scientist uses himself as
his first experimentation subject but fails to reverse the process. After his friend
betrays him, Griffin decided to murder him and begins his own personal "reign of
terror".

What if what you consider a blessing is also a curse? The Invisible Man by H.G.
Wells touches on this very same question.

How many of us wouldn't like to be invisible? That's what the protagonist, Griffin,
thought when he became invisible only to find it to be the bane of his existence.
Yes, there are some positives aspects, but H.G. Wells concentrates mostly on the
negative ones. I thought Wells did a good job building up the eerie atmosphere
that is prominent throughout the story. Actually, the atmosphere is the star of the
book as none of the characters resonated with me and the storyline, which mainly
consisted of wrecking havoc for havoc's sake, was not very inspired. The story
itself is also quite funny, I thought and many of the scenes played in my mind as
slapstick.

However, one could certainly tell that Wells is a master storyteller, and I find
myself engrossed in the story for several chapters (mainly at the beginning and
end). I also found the period details in the book very interesting.

The Invisible Man is the ultimate story of an insane anti-hero, before insane anti-
heroes became popular. Griffin himself becomes more and more pathetic as the
story progress and from the comical start Wells moves away to a darker, subtle
satire of small minds in small towns can be just as dangerous as any psychopath.
 6) Bibliography
The sources used during the making of this project were:

The Invisible Man” by H G Wells.

wikipedia