The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells gives an account of a man’s descent into madness as the result of his scientific feat, invisibility. Griffin, the invisible man, first appears as a mysterious stranger, bandaged and seeking shelter and recluse but progressively transforms into a lawless individual with a proposition to initiate a reign of terror. The change in Griffin’s character occurs due to his invisibility and the power it provides because “there is no one, on this view, who is iron-willed enough to maintain his morality and find the strength of purpose to keep his hands off what does not belong to him, when he is able to take whatever he wants from the market-stalls without fear of being discovered, to enter houses and sleep with whomever he chooses, to kill and to release from prison whomever he chooses, and generally to act like a god among men” (Plato). The shift into a maniacal anarchist is caused by the dangerous allure of scientific knowledge along with the power it provides and the lack of an identity.

The pursuit of scientific knowledge is a perilous quest as each feat and advancement draw nearer to ambiguous boundaries that are usually best left uncrossed. Griffin is not the first to fall to victim to knowledge’s allure as “Victor Frankenstein’s life was ruined when acquired the power to create life, Dorian Gray’s immortality came at a terrible cost, and Dr. Jekyll’s ability to separate the good and evil parts of his nature eventually destroyed both” (D’Ammassa). Like his fellow scientists of fantastic feats, Griffin’s discovery leads to his destruction. Before Griffin reaches his goal of his invisibility the pursuit of knowledge corrodes his morality. To fund his early experiments, Griffin robs his own father justif...

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...se sight of his humanity. Wells delivers an effective parable the damage that is caused to morality by abused power and isolation for power is corrosive agent and no one can do it all alone.

Works Cited

Beiderwell, Bruce. “The Grotesque in Wells’s The Invisible Man.” Bloom’s Literature. Facts On File,

Inc. Web. 20 Jan. 2014 http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&WID+101204&SID=5&iPin=MCVHGW03&SingleRecord=True

Brackett, Virginia. “The Invisible Man.” Bloom’s Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 20 Jan. 2014 http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE547wid=101204&sid=5&iPin=CBN186&SingleRecord=True D’Ammassa, Don. “The Invisible Man.” Bloom’s Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 23 Jan. 2014 http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&WI=101204&SID=5&iPin=ESF242&SingleRecord=True Wells, H. G.. The Invisible Man. London: Penguin, 2005. Print.