THE INVISIBLE MAN

Analysis of the book

Introduction

Herbert George Wells is a British author who is well remembered for having started the science fiction narrative genre. He was a real supporter of socialism and pacifism. The invisible man is a science fiction novel which was published in 1897.

Title Analysis

 "The Invisible Man" is the title of this story.

When reading the title of the novel, I expected to read the story of a lonely woman who -though being married to a man- was left alone for most of the time. This was my first impression because I "felt" the adjective invisible as belonging to something which is not present in the life of that woman. I thus imagined a story of sweetness, love, emotions and suffering, too; however, I had to change my first impression because the novel focused on an Invisible man from the physical point of view, and this was also confirmed by the cover of the book since it portrays some "empty" dresses. At the end of the reading, I had to confirm my second impression.

Plot

Griffin is a promising XIX century physicist but he is ignored by his yellow countrymen, thus he devotes himself to make his dream come true, namely develop a new discovery able to make him rich and have the respect he thinks he deserves for his intelligence. Griffin develops a process enabling him to make any object invisible and decides to test it on him. He is successful and rapidly discovers that being invisible means having many unexpected problems. He thus moves from London to Iping, a small city in the country where he continues his experiments trying to find a technique enabling him to be visible again. However, his invisibility is discovered and thus Griffin must escape far away, but after a short rush, he realizes the potential advantage of invisibility and decides to use it to establish terror. Griffin's plan is not successful and he is hunted and killed by policemen supported by a university old fellow to whom Griffin told many of his secrets, trusting that he would have helped him establishing his new reign.

Structure

The book is subdivided into twenty-three chapters: they are very short and easy to read because each has its own title which anticipates the content to the reader.

Characters:

Invisible man

He is the main character of the story. Since the beginning, he is defined as "stranger": this word in Italian has two meanings, it indicates a person coming from abroad and also someone who is rare. The intelligent reader may apply both meanings to the whole story.

The book is permeated by Griffin's arrogance since he has a bad behaviour with almost every other character: the Inn's owners, the servant, Marvel (a local tramp) and even Doctor Kemp who is a scientist as is the Invisible Man.

Doctor Kemp

He is a scientist but the book does not inform the reader about the scientific field in which the doctor works. Presumably, he is specialized in medicine because chapter 15 states that he immediately recognized a dark spot on the floor because it had the colour of drying blood. Moreover chapter 17 states "As between two scientists" and chapter 19 "You are a scientist" indicate that the scientific approach invades the story. Though Doctor Kemp is a scientist, he believes that the invisible man has cut himself of from mankind. In brief Doctor Kemp betrays the invisible man and calls the police. From the linguistic point of view, this character has a very harsh language since he often uses words such as: mad, beast, terrible, selfish and cruel.

Moreover there are another secondary characters in the book.

Places:

The story takes place in Iping, a small village far away from London; in this village, there is an inn called "Coach and Horses" where almost all events take place. Then the story goes on when the invisible man moves to another inn called the "Jolly Cricketers" in Burdock.

Narrative technique

• Kind of narration and kind of narrator:

     The narration is in third person and  the narrator is external because he tells the story to the reader without deeply expressing the thoughts of all characters thus the reader does not always know their feelings.

• Styles:

    The most used style is the free direct speech, but  some parts are in indirect speech.

Language

It is very easy to understand thanks to the use of simple and clear words some synonyms  and a very plain sentence structure.

Author's Message

It has to be noticed that Wells' works, though being scientific and fantastic, are a sound instrument of social and moral analysis: the novel tells the reader that science must work for a beneficial progress and that man must always be able to control the forces and the powers he created since an excess of power is detrimental to society. Moreover, the issue of a "strange" person can also be applied to present times since our society has a great fear of strangers both as foreign people and different people.

My Comment

I liked the novel very much because the messages are also applicable to today's times, notwithstanding the period in which Wells wrote it. The book really fascinated me because I was curios to know the end, it also stimulated my attention thanks to the particular use of repetitions and a clear way of writing.