Honors Blog: Invisible Man

The way how the people react to the invisible man develops the theme throughout the story. The theme, being fear of the unknown, develops when the people of the village that the invisible man, Griffin, is staying at, become so curious of who he is. As they come to learn more about Griffin they become more fearful of him and when he finally reveals, or tries to reveal who he is and what’s wrong with him, everyone becomes fearful of him. I think that they become so fearful of him because they don’t know where he is and what he will do. These are the literary terms that I believe are in the Invisible Man: H.G. Wells.

One of the literary terms that I found in the Invisible Man would have to be flashbacks from chapters 20-24. Flashbacks allowed the writer present past events during current events, in this case when Griffin is explaining to Kemp how he got to be invisible. I think that this literary term is important because it’s the way that we learn how he became the way that he is. Reading how he go to where he is we learn how he go the way he is and how being invisible gives him so much power.

The second literary term that I found was antagonist. Antagonist is someone who prevents the main character from living “happily ever after”. Griffin is preventing the entire village from living “happily ever after”. In chapter 24 paragraph 27, Griffin mentions to Kemp, “… That invisible man, Kemp, must now establish a reign of terror. Yes-no doubt it’s startling. But I mean it. A reign of terror. He must take some town like your Burdock and terrify and dominate it.” Even though only Kemp heard this I think that this is what the village felt he would do. Griffin was preventing the village from going back to normal.

The third literary term that I noticed was parable, a story that has a moral. I think that the moral of the story was that an power tend to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely, meaning that Griffins morality lessens as he gets more power. I think that this is more like a story with a moral because when Griffin tries to create a reign of terror he just gets killed in the end.

In the end Griffin is killed after he goes on a rampage killing people of the village. One thing that I debated with my dad, who has read the book too, is it the drugs that causes the invisible man to go mad, or is it just him having so much power that makes him go mad. Which do you think it is? Leave comments.