In this blog post, we will naturally explore the content, impressions, and core meanings of the work, focusing on “H.G. Wells and ‘The Invisible Man’: An Analysis of His Life, Thought, and Works.”
Wells’ Life and Literature
Wells is remarkable above all as a liberator of thought and imagination. — Bertrand Russell
Herbert George Wells (H. G. Wells), a social critic ahead of his time and often called the father of science fiction, was born on September 21, 1866, in Brumley, Kent, England. His father was a gardener and cricket player, and his mother was a housekeeper. After their marriage, the couple ran a small pottery shop, but they were unable to escape poverty.
Coming from such an ordinary working-class background, Wells did not receive a proper formal education during his childhood due to his family’s difficult circumstances. He left school around the age of fourteen and drifted from one job to another. Although he worked as an apprentice at a draper’s shop at his parents’ insistence, he quit after about two years because it did not suit him, and subsequently secured a position as a trainee teacher in Midhurst. Finally given the opportunity for higher education, he entered the London School of Science and Education (the predecessor of the Faculty of Science at the University of London) in 1884, at the age of eighteen, on a scholarship and with excellent grades. There, he studied under the famous biologist T. H. Huxley (who was also a close colleague of Charles Darwin, the author of ‘The Origin of Species’). He was the grandfather of Aldous Huxley, author of ‘Brave New World’. He advocated agnosticism in philosophy and religion and was an ardent supporter of Darwin’s theory of evolution. In contrast to Darwin, who sought to avoid getting entangled in debates over evolution, Huxley acted as a champion of evolutionary theory, actively engaging in various debates and advocating for the independence of science from theology. Wells studied science under Huxley for three years, during which time he developed the logical consistency, scientific reasoning, and evolutionary and prophetic intellectual thinking that would form the foundation of his literature and philosophy.
After graduating from school, Wells worked as a science teacher for a short time, but soon turned his attention to writing and began penning several short stories, marking his full-fledged entry into the literary world. Finally, in 1895, he published ‘The Time Machine’, which brought him great fame. ‘The Time Machine’ not only depicted a bleak future for humanity but also was the first to illustrate the possibility of time travel through scientific means, broadening the horizons of our thinking—which had been fixed in the present—to encompass the past and the future.
Over the next four years, Wells published works such as ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ (1896), ‘The Invisible Man’ (1897), and ‘The War of the Worlds’ (1898), vividly portraying a bleak vision of modern civilization. In particular, ‘The War of the Worlds’, published just before the turn of the century, exposed the outdated traditions of the Victorian era and the blind faith in human progress, while also criticizing British imperialism and the people buried in their daily lives, emphasizing the need to “be liberated from the shackles of the past.” In a 1902 lecture at the Royal Society, Wells expressed the following conviction: “We must realize the creative effort of our own actions without being bound by the constraints of the past. We must free ourselves from the shackles of the past.”
In expounding this philosophy, Wells expands his imagination from Earth into the distant cosmos. Furthermore, while depicting the gloomy, apocalyptic vision of the fin de siècle, he dreams of new construction amidst destruction.
As the 20th century dawned, Wells displayed an optimistic vision, witnessing the emergence of new values and a new world order following the demise of the old, traditional Victorian values. Starting with ‘The Time Machine’, the works he published in the late 19th century reflect a shift: the scientific knowledge and evolutionary, prophetic intellectual thought that had previously been projected onto a dark worldview are now embodied in ideas grounded in an optimistic outlook aimed at creating an ideal society and a new worldview. Based on these ideas, in ‘Anticipations’, published in 1901, he foresaw and analyzed the future of humanity as it entered the new century, presenting ideas for social reform. His ideas on social reform, developed through interactions with the Fabian Society (a British socialist organization founded in London in 1884 by Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and others, which advocated for social transformation through gradual reform) and utopian socialists, led to his vision of a single global state as an ideal world. However, his ideas, rooted in boundless imagination and idealism, stood in stark contrast to the ideals of the Fabian Society, which adhered to a moderate, gradualist reformist approach. Ultimately, he moved beyond the moderate ideals pursued by the Fabian Society and, through works such as ‘A Modern Utopia’ (1905), ‘Men Like Gods’ (1923), and ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ (1933), expanded his vision of an ideal society beyond Earth to a cosmic scale, developing a more macro-level and innovative utopian philosophy. Furthermore, through Enlightenment-inspired works such as ‘The Science of Life’ (1930) and ‘The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind’ (1932), he advocated for social reform and progress aimed at a single world government.
However, after witnessing the horrors of World War II, he began to feel skeptical of the optimistic outlook he had long held. Eventually, he began to reveal a gradually darker vision in ‘The Fate of Homo Sapiens’ (1939), and in his final work, ‘Mind at the End of Its Tether’ (1945), he ultimately rejected the optimistic worldview he had held for so many years. He passed away quietly on August 13, 1946, at the age of eighty.
About ‘The Invisible Man’
The Freedom to Do as One Pleases
Published in 1897, ‘The Invisible Man’ is a science fiction novel about the invisible man—a concept all too familiar to us. The concept of an invisible man had existed for a long time—as seen in Plato’s ‘The Republic’ with the Ring of Gyges and in Greek mythology (‘The Iliad’) with the “Cap of Hades” (Hades, whose name in Greek means “the invisible one,” is the god who rules the realm of the dead; wearing his cap renders one invisible)—but it belonged to the realm of magic and mythology.
It was not until Wells that the concept of an invisible human—a being capable of actual invisibility—finally gained a sense of reality. For the first time, Wells demonstrated the possibility of an invisible human through a scientific explanation (albeit one that did not satisfy scientific rigor) that possessed its own internal logic: removing pigments from the body and manipulating the human body’s refractive index to match that of air.
However, if the book had merely demonstrated the scientific possibility of an invisible man, ‘The Invisible Man’ would not be recognized today as an eternal classic of science fiction. This is because there are inevitable scientific flaws. For example, if every part of the body becomes transparent, light cannot form an image on the retina but passes straight through, meaning the invisible man himself cannot see anything.
Despite such flaws in scientific logic, ‘The Invisible Man’ continues to captivate people because it serves as a modern-day fable of “Gyges’ Ring,” depicting people’s secret desires, and because we still live in a society where the power of “Gyges’ Ring” holds sway. In Plato’s ‘The Republic’, there is a story about Gyges, a shepherd from Lydia (a kingdom that flourished in western Asia Minor from the 7th to the 6th century BCE). After a severe thunderstorm and earthquake, he discovers a bronze horse in a fissure that had opened up. Opening the door inside the horse and peering inside, he finds a corpse with a gold ring on its finger. He removes the ring from the corpse’s finger. Then, wearing that ring at a gathering of shepherds, he suddenly becomes invisible. Realizing the power of the magical ring, he eventually commits adultery with the queen, conspires with her to murder the king, and seizes the throne. In this way, the “Ring of Gyges,” which granted the shepherd the throne, symbolizes “the freedom to do as one pleases (exousia)” without facing punishment. If people were to obtain such a ring, how would they behave?
The moment Gyges realized the ring’s true meaning, he lost his innocent appearance as a shepherd. And he could never return to his former self as a shepherd. This is because he cannot bring himself to give up the magic ring. In this way, the story of “Gyges’s Ring” poses an ethical question to us: what would we do if we were granted “the freedom to do as we please”?
In fact, when we ask ourselves, “What if I became invisible?”, the thoughts that typically come to mind are the bad things I could do without anyone knowing. Like Gyges, who obtained the magic ring, Griffin in ‘The Invisible Man’ also awakens to wicked and secret desires. However, Griffin overlooks one crucial fact the moment he becomes invisible: that he can never return to his original form.
The Invisible Man
‘The Invisible Man’ is not merely a moral fable akin to ‘The Ring of Gyges.’ In fact, although Griffin becomes invisible, he never gains the ‘freedom to do as he pleases’ that Gyges obtained. On the contrary, because he is invisible, the Invisible Man faces many restrictions on his freedom. He must battle the cold due to his naked body, avoid dust and rain that could expose him, remain constantly vigilant against the risk of colliding with people or carriages, and even when eating, he must avoid the gaze of others because the food he consumes remains visible until it is digested. Furthermore, whenever he reveals his body, he must accept being perceived by others as a monstrous creature.
Ultimately, the Invisible Man becomes a monster and ends up being hunted by people simply because he is invisible.
The most striking aspect of this work is that, contrary to people’s misconceptions, Griffin is a complex character who is difficult to define. As a lonely figure alienated from the world, he cannot be viewed merely as a mad scientist, an object of fear, or a villain consumed by desire. Perhaps there is little difference between Griffin before he became invisible and Griffin after he became invisible. In fact, what is crucial to understanding this work is the aversion and fear people feel toward “invisible beings”—which Wells masterfully portrays through the figure of the invisible man—as well as the “subtle hostility accompanied by fear” that people feel toward Griffin’s “visible presence (or thing).” We implicitly come to understand people’s aversion toward Griffin, as well as his predicament and psychology, from the fact that he might have been born with albinism. He may have suffered from the very beginning due to the way people looked at him as if he were a monster, and from the very fact of being seen. Perhaps that is why he chose the path of disappearing from people’s sight altogether. Rather, he chose the path of becoming an “invisible man,” much like the protagonist of Ralph Ellison’s novel ‘Invisible Man’ (1952) and his social predicament (he must live as merely a Black man, a socially invisible human being, in a society that refuses to acknowledge him as a person). Viewed in this light, the invisible man is not simply a perpetrator against others or a shepherd who has obtained Gyges’ ring; rather, he becomes a being who remains in the position of a minority and an other. Therefore, Griffin’s tragedy does not end simply because he has become invisible. Although he became an invisible being to escape the gaze of people who viewed him as a monster, he has now become a true monster—one destined to be killed by others and forced to vanish completely from the world of people.The aversion and fear that visible people feel toward the invisible being (the Invisible Man) reflect the stereotypes held by the majority toward the minority and by the same toward the other; conversely, the emotions Griffin, as an invisible being, feels toward visible people reflect the anxiety inherent in the psychology of the other. Ultimately, through the contrast between humans and the Invisible Man, Wells implicitly reveals not only the Invisible Man’s evil deeds but also the reactions people display toward him—specifically, their aversion and fear toward “the invisible,” “what should be visible but is not,” or, in other words, “the Other”—as well as the prevailing societal stereotypes. Given that Griffin is an Other who has been excluded from the visible world into the invisible one, it is only natural that the reader feels a peculiar pathos while watching his form gradually reveal itself as a dead corpse before various people. Finally, through the chaotic commotion involving various people (Dr. Kemp, the police officer, curious onlookers, laborers, and children), and the final scene of the Invisible Man—which offers a contrasting impression—Wells depicts the contrasting relationship between “the visible” and “the invisible” with subtle nuance. Ultimately, the Invisible Man’s body—though completely out of place in the situation—is carried into a pub called “The Jolly Cricketers,” which seems to reflect the restored peace of mind of the people.Perhaps the reason the Invisible Man’s death feels like a tragedy is that, even today, more than a century later, similar events still occur routinely around us.
