Theme Analysis

Corruption of Morals in the Absence of Social Restriction -

 The narrator uses the Invisible Man to experiment with the depth to which a person can sink when there are no social restrictions to suppress his behavior. When Griffin first kills his father, he excuses it away by saying that the man was a “sentimental fool.” When he takes the potion himself, he endures such pain that he “understands” why the cat howled so much in the process of becoming invisible. Nevertheless he has no compassion for the cat, for his father or for any of the people he takes advantage of in the course of trying to survive invisibility. On the contrary, he descends from committing atrocities because they are necessary to his survival to committing them simply because he enjoys doing so.

This theme of corruption in the absence of social law has become a motif that is explored in other literary works. H. G. Well created his story with very little psychological elaboration or character development. Other writers, however, have taken the idea much farther; we are thus blessed with novels such as Lord of the Flies, and Heart of Darkness, along with short stories by Poe and Melville.

Science without Humanity - 

Although Wells does not have his characters elaborate on this idea, the concept is represented in the character of Kemp as well as in Griffin himself. Kemp wants to stop Griffin more out of fear for himself than out of concern for the community, but he is nonetheless fascinated by the accomplishment of this misguided college student. The problem with the entire experiment is that Griffin pursued the idea of invisibility without regard to whether or not there would be any real benefit to society because of it.

Isolation

The Invisible Man is about a guy with no friends, no family, and, well, just no one at all. It seems like no matter where he finds himself, he's isolated from the larger community – he's as alone in Iping as he is in London. If the Invisible Man were just a hermit who lived alone by choice, that would be one thing. But our guy is a genius scientist who is surrounded by people; they just don't understand him. That might be the worst form of isolation: surrounded by people but always alone. And it's worth mentioning that some critics think that science becomes dangerous when it's isolated from the larger community; if we think of Griffin as a symbol for science-gone-wrong, this makes a lot of sense.

Community

To show how isolated the Invisible Man is, Wells exposes us to variety of communities in The Invisible Man. There's the small village (Iping), the larger village (Burdock), the city (London), the intellectual community (the scientific world), the marriage (Mr. and Mrs. Hall), and just about every other community you can think of. (Landlord and tenant, Friends, Police officer and citizen consultant.) Unfortunately for Griffin, he seems to be on the outside of each of these communities, which leads him to be the subject of gossip and rumors or even violence. 

Betrayal

In The Invisible Man, betrayal is always tied up with priorities. Let us explain: the Invisible Man doesn't steal from his dad just to be mean. He steals because he cares more about his scientific experiments than anything else (including his family). On the same token, we expect someone to keep their friend's secrets, but when Griffin outlines his supervillain plan to take over England, Kemp decides that he has a more important priority than loyalty to his friend: protecting his country and neighbors. So whenever we see a betrayal – whether of another character or of a principle – we have to ask: what does this show us about the betrayer's priorities?

Violence

These days science makes us think of test tubes, labs, and quiet people pipetting away. Not so much in The Invisible Man. In this book, dogs attack men and men attack dogs. At least two people get shot (the Invisible Man and Adye). Stones get thrown at people and at windows. A lot of furniture gets thrown, smashed, or just banged around. Oh, and the Invisible Man gets into at least three big brawls, one of which ends in his violent death.

Identity

Invisible Man or Mystery Man? For most of the book, the identity of the Invisible Man is completely unknown to us. He starts off in Iping simply as "the stranger," is revealed in Chapter 7 as the Invisible Man, and only in Chapter 17 do we learn his real name: Griffin. (He never gets a first name.) But identity in The Invisible Man isn't just about people's names; it's also about their occupations, their personalities, and the role they play in their communities. So is there really any stable identity in this book? That is, if you take a scientific genius from a large city and put him in a small town, will he act the same way?