THE INVISIBLE MAN- SETTING, CONFLICT, MOOD

Setting

England in the 1890's. Iping and the surrounding area Much of the action initially occurs around or in a couple of pubs and an inn, thus taking advantage of the natural opportunity for people to spread rumors, speculate on mysterious issues, and expand on each other’s stories.

Conflict

Protagonist and Antagonist

The story contains both external and internal conflict. In either case, both the protagonist and the antagonist is Griffin himself as he has made himself his own worst enemy. The external conflicts that Griffin causes are between Griffin and various members of the town as his invisibility is gradually discovered. People react with fear and then with terror as Griffin aggravates the situation by lashing out against people as soon as they figure him out. The people accept his existence with surprising lack of suspicion about the possibility of such an occurrence, which may be a lack on the author's part. Once they believe that he exists, the primary goal is to apprehend and imprison him. Although motives are not elaborated upon, it would seem that different people in the town have different notions of what they might do when and if they could capture the man. Griffin also ultimately sees Kemp as an enemy although he had at first believed that Kemp would be both sympathetic and cooperative.

The most important conflict is internal as Griffin himself struggles to live with his situation. He rationalizes his crimes rather than making any sane attempt to get people to understand his predicament. He uses force to get people to help him and goes from bad to worse in his attempts to replenish his research materials for experiments in reversing the process that rendered him invisible. There is no real depth of character. Griffin simply runs from place to place trying to survive by increasingly decadent methods.

Mood

The mood is generally distant as that of a newspaper reporting telling about a strange event. In the sections where Griffin is telling his own story, the tone is one of self-justification, lack of conscience, and even a certain amount of arrogance.