Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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.
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,
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.
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.
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. 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.
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. To Kemp, he
reveals his true identity.
Griffin tells Kemp the story of how he invented chemicals capable of rendering
bodies invisible. He now imagines that he can make Kemp his secret confederate,
describing a plan to use his invisibility to terrorize 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 organize 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, and 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. The Invisible Man's battered body gradually becomes
visible as he dies, pitiable in the stillness of death.
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 make things 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.
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. 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.
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:
wikipedia