Invisible Man

A gripping and entertaining tale of terror and suspense as well as a potent Faustian allegory of hubris and science run amok, The Invisible Man endures as one of the signature stories in the literature of science fiction. A brilliant scientist uncovers the secret to invisibility, but his grandiose dreams and the power he unleashes cause him to spiral into intrigue, madness, and murder. The inspiration for countless imitations and film adaptations, The Invisible Man is as remarkable and relevant today as it was a hundred years ago. As Arthur C. Clarke points out in his Introduction, “The interest of the story . . . lies not in its scientific concepts, but in the brilliantly worked out development of the theme of invisibility. If one could be invisible, then what?”

Hawley Griffin, the central character of the novel is a Faustian figure belonging to the archetypal group of mad scientists counting Wells' earliest creation Dr. Moreau, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll, and Shelley's Frankenstein. Like [a:Aldous Huxley|3487|Aldous Huxley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1547138835p2/3487.jpg], Wells was a founding member of the Eugenics Education Society, which was concerned with overpopulation and the breeding of disease. For them, poverty was one of the vices that needed annihilation. The Invisible Man can be read as an attempt from Wells to convey to his peers the danger of such a state of destitution through the progress of his focal character. Griffin was a researcher who needed a lot of money to finance his work. He was poor, however, and this state of insolvency had prompted him in the course of time to develop a fraudulent conduct in the quest of the money he so desperately needed to pursue his research and experiments. At the same time, the book cautions against scientific experimentation in dangerous grounds. Like Moreau, Griffin had attempted to defy nature and its rules, which caused him to slide down an abyss of decadence and criminality in the quest of the impossible. Thus, the plot reflects the late-Victorian collapse of morality. Similar to Henry Jekyll who came up with a potion that allowed him to commit all kind of atrocities without harming his personal reputation and social persona, Griffin's main objective throughout his quest of invisibility was to acquire a means to deflect guilt from his own person. This idea illustrates the lack of discipline and the failing moral guidelines in the midst of the degenerating society of the day. In a racial reading of the story, Griffin's alienation and subsequent misconduct and criminality find their genesis in his treatment as an outsider to the community. Griffin was an Albino, and as such he had always suffered from the otherness which marked other people's interaction with him. In this regard, one character had even remarked that the invisible man might have been a pie bald, white here and dark there. This alienation on the basis of race and appearance imparts the author's concern with racism in the novel. Like [b:Dracula|17245|Dracula|Bram Stoker|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387151694l/17245._SY75_.jpg|3165724], The Invisible Man embodies the fears which oppressed the late 19 century English society. His invisibility speaks of the dread which filled the late-Victorian Britons in regard to immigration. Jack the Ripper, for one, was believed to belong to the Jewish community which had closed ranks and shielded his identity against discovery once and for all. Whether that was true or not, his mystery had remained unsolved and with it the undying fear of an eminent danger. Accordingly, the dread of invisible threats sprang among people, for the Ripper could have been walking the streets of London still and choosing his victims in broad daylight without attracting notice. This state of affairs marks the progress of both the Transylvanian vampire and the Albino criminal. Both characters had the ability to go wherever they pleased without emitting a single sign of hostility to caution their surroundings.