THE
INVISIBLE MAN BY H.G. WELLSH.G. Wells
A stranger arrived in town and rushed to the boarding home owned by Mrs.
Hall. He hurried in as she opened the door and asked for a room and a fire. Even though he wore a long coat, a hat, a bandaged face, and blue glasses that covered the sides of his face near his eyes. The next time she saw him without his glasses and was confused because his eyes looked so hollow. She told others about the strange man and the town was gossiping about him. At the local bar, he ordered a drink. The men at the bar begin to say negative things to him and wanted to know about him. He told them that he was
invisible and that it was not a good way to be. They taunted him so he removed all of his clothing. They couldn’t see him but kept taunting and looking for him. The even guarded the door. After he hit a few of them and one poked a finger toward him, he yelled and told him to never stick his finger in his eye again. The landlady wanted him to pay for his room and he asked her to wait a couple of days. She was willing to. Later in the week, she realized that someone had stolen money from her safe place. She reported it to the police and said that it must have been that boarder. When his boxes and luggage arrived, much noise was heard from his room. Periodically, he knocked and broke glasses around the room. In great concern for the safety of people, the people of the town were told about the invisible man who was an angry man who would hurt people. Later the invisible man damaged glass windows and scattered things around the town and in the boarding room. He was considered dangerous. Meanwhile he continued to work in his laboratory where he was mixing chemicals and trying to make something. The invisible man continued to cause havoc all around town and hitting people. The whole town was scared and would not come out of their homes. A
professor came to see him. The invisible man tried to make the professor believe that he was Griffin, a man who knew Professor Kemp at the University. He told the professor that he had developed a way to make a man invisible but did not know a formula to make him visible again.> The police told everyone that the invisible man was mad, homicidal and like a rage growing to mania. He was right. When the invisible man was talking with Professor Kemp, he made a proposal that they work together to kill, kill, kill. Kemp did not agree with it and was glad when the police arrived---he had sent a note to them. The invisible man, Griffin, went on a rampage killing many and he even picked up a child and violently threw him aside so that its ankle was broken. Griffin was angry at Kemp so sent a message that he was going to murder him. At the appointed time, even though police were at Kemp’s house, Griffin found a way to get to him. First, he broke all the windows of Kemp’s house. Then, outside he beat Kemp to a bloody death while a neighbor watched the fight and could not understand as he watched one man seem to be wrestling and being hurt by someone who was not there. Kemp got up and started running. Of course, the invisible man was chasing him. The cops were following. Another wrestling, fighting match between the two started. The police surrounded them. Kemp grabbed Griffin and wouldn’t let go. Like the old saying in southwest America, he was determined to hold on like a snapping turtle UNTIL it thundered. After Griffin, Kemp and cops wrestled and bled, they finally held Griffin down. Griffin was hurt. Kemp knew that because he felt the wet mouth. As the people watched, the invisible man’s body began to change to a faint, transparent glass color, and then veins, arteries, heart, nerves and bones could be seen. Soon the hand grew cloudy and opaque. The colors changed like the slow spreading of a poison. Soon they could see his crushed chest and shoulders and the dim outline of his battered features. Soon, they saw the bruised and broken body of a man about age 30 withpure white hair and beard and his garnet eyes. His face was quickly covered so that the children in the crowd would not see him. He was then wrapped in a sheet and carried away. He was just a young scientist who found a drug to make him invisible, yet he was unable to find a chemical mixture that returned to visibility. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Movies have been made of the story but H.G. Wells would not be happy because the final scene did not happen as he had written it. The movies made a laughing stock of the police bobbies when they had formed a circle around the house to catch him. After it snowed, a farmer found that he was asleep under some straw in the barn. The police then were able to burn the barn after bolting the rear door. He was shot and his body was not seen but was dead.