The Invisible Man
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the song by the rock band Queen, see The Invisible Man (song).
See Invisible Man for the novel by Ralph Ellison.
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| First edition cover of The Invisible Man | |
| Author | H.G. Wells |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1897 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
The Invisible Man is a famous 1897 science fiction novel(la) by H.G. Wells. Wells' novel was originally serialized in Pearson's Magazine in 1897, and published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man of the title is "Griffin", a scientist who theorizes that if a person's refractive index is changed to exactly that of air and his body does not absorb or reflect light, then he will not be visible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but cannot become visible again, becoming mentally unstable as a result.
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[edit] Plot summary
The story begins in the sleepy English village of Iping, in West Sussex, as curiosity and fear are evoked in the locals when a mysterious stranger arrives to stay at the local inn, The Coach and Horses. The stranger wears a long, thick coat and gloves, and his face is hidden entirely by bandages, large goggles and a wide-brimmed hat. The stranger is extremely reclusive and demands to be left alone, spending most of his time in his room working with a set of chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at night. He quickly becomes the talk of the village as he unnerves the locals.
Meanwhile, a series of mysterious burglaries occur in the village in which the victims catch no sight of the thief. One morning when the innkeepers, Mr. and Mrs. Hall, pass the stranger's room, they enter in curiosity when they notice the stranger's clothes are scattered all over the floor but the stranger is nowhere to be seen. But the furniture seems to spring alive and the bedclothes and a chair leap into mid-air and push them out of the room. Later in the day Mrs. Hall confronts the stranger about this, and he reveals that he is invisible, removing his bandages and goggles to reveal nothing beneath. As Mrs. Hall flees in horror, the police attempt to catch the stranger but he throws off all his clothes and escapes.
The Invisible Man flees to the downs, where he frightens a tramp, Thomas Marvel, with his invisibility and forces him to become his assistant. Together with Marvel, he returns to the village where Marvel steals the Invisible Man's books and apparatus from the inn while the Invisible Man himself steals the doctor and vicar's clothes. But after the theft, Mr. Marvel attempts to betray the Invisible Man by telling the police of him, and the Invisible Man chases after him, threatening to kill him.
Marvel flees to the seaside town of Burdock where he takes refuge in an inn. The Invisible Man attempts to break in through the back door but he is overheard and shot by a black-bearded American, and flees the scene badly injured, taking refuge in a nearby house, where he uses bandages to cover up his wound. The house turns out to belong to Dr. Kemp, whom the Invisible Man recognizes, and he reveals to Kemp his true identity — Griffin, a brilliant medical student whom Kemp studied with at university.
Griffin explains to Kemp that after leaving university he was desperately poor, and determined to achieve something of scientific significance, he began work on an experiment to make people and objects invisible, using money stolen from his own father, who committed suicide after being robbed by his son. Griffin experimented with a formula that altered the refractive index of objects, thus stopping them from absorbing or reflecting light and thus making them invisible. He performed the experiment on a cat to prove it worked on living creatures, but when the cat's owner, Griffin's neighbour, realized the cat was missing, she complained to their landlord, and Griffin wound up performing the invisibility procedure on himself to hide from them.
After burning the whole building down to cover his tracks, he felt a sense of power from being invisible, and after struggling to survive out in the open, he stole some clothing from a dingy backstreet shop and took residence at The Coach & Horses inn to reverse the experiment. He then explains to Kemp that he now plans to begin a reign of terror, using his invisibility to terrorize the nation with Kemp as his visible partner.
Realizing that Griffin is clearly insane, Kemp has no plans to help him and instead alerts the police. When the police arrive, Griffin violently assaults Kemp and a policeman before escaping, and the next day he leaves a note on Kemp's doorstep announcing that Kemp will be the first man killed in the reign of terror. Kemp remains cool and writes a note to the colonel detailing a plan to use himself as bait to trap the Invisible Man, but as a maidservant attempts to deliver the note she is attacked by Griffin and the note is stolen.
Just as the police accompany the attacked maid back to the house, the Invisible Man breaks in through the back door and makes way for Kemp. Kemp bolts from the house to lead him away, and runs down the hill to the town below, where he alerts a navvy that the Invisible Man is approaching. As the navvy witnesses Kemp being attacked out of empty air as Griffin catches up with him, a workman hurls a shovel through the air, striking the Invisible Man and knocking him to the ground, where he is violently beaten by the navvy workers. The Invisible Man dies of the injuries, and his naked and battered body slowly becomes visible on the ground as he dies.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The Invisible Man is also a movie produced by Universal Pictures in 1933, directed by James Whale. Griffin was played by Claude Rains and given the first name "Jack". The movie is considered one of the great Universal horror films of the 1930s, and it spawned a number of sequels, plus many spinoffs using the idea of an "invisible man" that were largely unrelated to Wells' original story. Among these were The Invisible Man Returns (1940), The Invisible Woman (1940) and Invisible Agent (1942).
A Japanese film entitled Invisible Man was released by legendary studio Toho in 1954, and is a loose adaption of the story.
A comic version of the theme, starring Chevy Chase, was released in 1992 as Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Another related movie is the 2000 Paul Verhoeven film Hollow Man.
In the 1987 compilation comedy Amazon Women on the Moon, a "son" of the original Invisible Man played by Ed Begley, Jr. appears in a short spoof of the 1933 Claude Rains film, titled Son of the Invisible Man. He was named simply "Griffin".
The novel was adapted into a six-part TV series screened by the BBC in the UK in 1984, also called The Invisible Man. This version starred Pip Donaghy in the title role, and stayed much more faithful plot-wise to the novel than any other film or TV adaptation to this date.
At least three television series called The Invisible Man have been produced for American television, each casting the title character in the role of secret agent. Another U.S. TV adaptation of the novel was called Gemini Man.
A soft-core porn film titled The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man was produced in 2003.
[edit] Allusions/references from other works
Rock bands Queen, Helloween and Marillion have all recorded songs called "The Invisible Man"; Scatman John covered Queen's version. The British satirical show Spitting Image also featured a song called "The Invisible Man", sung by the puppet of then-Employment Secretary Tom King.
The character of the Invisible Man, given a full name of "Hawley Griffin", appears in the graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore. In the movie adaptation, the character is renamed "Rodney Skinner", and instead of being the inventor of the formula, he is a thief who stole the formula. Skinner was especially created for the film due to copyright issues regarding the 1933 Universal film.
Ken Hill adapted the book to play form in 1991, and it debuted at Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1991. It played in the West End in 1993 with Michael N. Harbour as Griffin.
Invisible Man is Monster in My Pocket #46. In the comic book series, he was allied with the good monsters. In the animated special, he was rechristened Dr. Henry Davenport and became leader of the good monsters.
The book Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett mentioned this book and movie.
[edit] Science
In 2006 Graeme Milton at Utah University and Nicolae-Alexandru Nicorovici at University of Technology, Sydney claimed to have worked out how to make a "cloaking device" to render objects invisible at certain frequencies of light. The cloaking device relies on recently discovered materials that have a negative refractive index, which effectively makes light travel backwards [1].
Russian writer Yakov I. Perelman pointed out in Physics Can Be Fun (1913) that from a scientific point of view, a man made invisible by Griffin's method should have been blind, since a human eye works by absorbing incoming light, not letting it through completely. However, Wells seems to have taken this into account; the Invisible man is not completely invisible, as the "colored part of the back of his eyes" (presumably retinas) remain visible, although "fainter than mist".
[edit] External links
- The Invisible Man, available freely at Project Gutenberg
- Text of the novel
- The Invisible Man in TomeRaider 3 Format
- Librivox recording of The Invisible Man -- free, human-read audiobook
- 3 may 2006 guardian article about Milton and Nicorovici's invention
| Horror Icons In Film | |
|---|---|
| Classic: | The Creature | Dracula | Frankenstein's monster | The Invisible Man The Mummy | Count Orlok | The Phantom | The Wolf Man |
| Modern: | Norman Bates | Chucky | Ghostface | Jigsaw | Freddy Krueger | Leatherface | Hannibal Lecter | Michael Myers | Pinhead | Jason Voorhees | |
