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1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tumblr_nh1o6cnauv1qex654o1_1280.jpg]]
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3''The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance'' is an 1897 novel by Creator/HGWells, TropeCodifier for many {{Invisibility}} tropes. [[SimilarlyNamedWorks Not to be confused with]] the 1951 novel ''Literature/InvisibleMan'' by Ralph Ellison.
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5''The Invisible Man'' tells the story of an encounter the people of a sleepy English town have with a mysterious newcomer who conceals himself entirely with bandages. The townspeople grow ever curious at the secretive, dangerously short-tempered man and his experiments. Frustrated by the inquisitive nature of the locals, the man goes into a rage, tears away his bandages, and reveals to the people that he is in fact completely invisible.
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7From this point on, the story follows the invisible man's trail of destruction and terror across the land as he attempts to either find a cure for his condition or take over the country (whichever is more likely).
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9Like many classic works it's been adapted into other media many times. The most famous is the [[Film/TheInvisibleMan1933 film version]] by Creator/{{Universal}} in 1933 starring Creator/ClaudeRains. The Creator/{{BBC}} did a relatively [[Series/TheInvisibleMan1984 faithful adaptation]] as a miniseries in 1984. In 2017, Creator/BigFinish released a full-cast AudioAdaptation boasting Sir Creator/JohnHurt in the title role, and it was released only a few weeks after his death. A [[Film/TheInvisibleMan2020 second film adaptation]], starring Creator/OliverJacksonCohen in the title role, was released in 2020.
10----
11!!''The Invisible Man'' provides examples of:
12* AbusiveOffspring: Griffin stole money from his own father and drove him to take his own life.
13* TheAdjectivalMan
14* AgonyOfTheFeet: The people trying to catch Griffin try setting a trap by putting glass powder on the ground, because they know he is barefoot.
15* AuthorAppeal: Griffin's invisibility came about not only through chemistry, but also through experiments with light and optics. Wells himself studied optics at some point in his life; the subject later comes up in ''Literature/TheTimeMachine''.
16* AxCrazy: Griffin can become murderously psychotic when agitated...which doesn't take much.
17* BadassBystander: Several supporting characters actually prove to be quite resourceful, brave and dependable throughout the novel.
18** The bartender and customers at the Jolly Cricketers, who shelter a fleeing Marvel and save him from Griffin's wrath.
19** Two constables manage to go toe to toe with Griffin and successfully drive him off (despite him being armed with a gun and an axe!).
20** [[spoiler:An entire AngryMob of [[BadassBystander Badass Bystanders]] assists Kemp in killing Griffin at the end.]]
21* BandagedFace: TropeCodifier, if not [[TropeMaker Maker]]
22* BlessedWithSuck: Griffin quickly discovers invisibility ain't all its cracked up to be.
23* BrattyHalfPint: Several of these are prone to teasing Griffin during his infrequent walks around town. They run away giggling and singing annoying songs whenever he wheels upon them angrily.
24* ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes: A variant: when Griffin makes a cat invisible, the process doesn't work on the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapetum_lucidum tapetum lucidum]], so the cat appears to be a pair of glowing eyes floating around.
25* ChemistryCanDoAnything
26* ClusterFBomb: Wells makes it as clear as he could at the time that Griffin has an absolutely filthy mouth. Take a drink every time we hear about his "imprecations."
27* ConspicuousGloves: Gloves, together with the bandages, are the most conspicuous parts of Griffin's disguise.
28* CulturallySensitiveAdaptation: The 1984 Soviet film adaptation completely turns the tables compared to the original, making Griffin a {{humble|Hero}} TragicHero and Kemp a {{greed}}y villain.
29* DidntThinkThisThrough: Griffin worked so hard to achieve invisibility, he never bothered to plan for the downsides of it.
30* DiesWideOpen: Griffin dies like this.
31* DirtyCoward: Kemp, at least according to one of the constables assigned to protect him. When he runs away while they're fighting Griffin, "the second policeman's opinion of Kemp was terse and vivid." [[spoiler: To be entirely fair to Kemp, he's ''actually'' trying to lure Griffin away into a trap (and besides which, the policeman might feel differently if ''he'' was the special target of a crazed invisible assassin).]]
32* DramaticIrony: In one scene, Marvel is told by two strangers about the Invisible Man and his exploits...unaware that Marvel has been indeed forced into servitude by the man, who is standing beside him.
33* DrivenToSuicide: Griffin's father, after Griffin stole money from him to fund his work.
34* EagleLand: Somewhat interestingly, the only customer in the Jolly Cricketers who carries a personal firearm is a visiting American.
35* TheEndOrIsIt: ZigZagged. [[spoiler:Thomas Marvel keeps the money that Griffin stole and uses it to open his own inn. On his days off, he locks himself in his study and reads the notebooks which are still in his possession, with the intent of one day replicating Griffin's work. However, several pages have been washed and Marvel has no understanding of advanced scientific formulas or Latin, so it is unlikely anything will come from this.]]
36* EvilDetectingDog: When Griffin's packages arrive at the Coach and Horses, the cart driver's dog bites Griffin.
37* FunetikAksent: Many of the characters' accents are written phonetically. One example being that Mrs. Hall calls her husband "Gearge" (George).
38* GratuitousLaboratoryFlasks: Griffins orders a ''crap ton'' of lab equipment to fill his room at the inn with, in a chapter appropriately titled "The Thousand and One Bottles", wherein Griffin drives Mr. and Mrs. Hall nuts with how much chemistry equipment he sees fit to fill his room at their inn with. And apparently he had to get a lot of his stuff on the fly, since, aside from a rack of test tubes and a laboratory-grade scale, most of the stuff he's using is repurposed from more conventional household items including salad oil bottles.
39* GroinAttack: When fleeing Kemp's house, Griffin gives Colonel Adye a good kick to the nuts (while simultaneously choking him ''and'' knocking him down the stairs!).
40* HairTriggerTemper: Griffin. Lampshaded by Kemp after he finds that Griffin has overturned his nightstand:
41-->"Fit of temper," said the Invisible Man. "Forgot this arm; and it's sore."\
42"You're rather liable to that sort of thing."\
43"I am."
44* HarbingerOfImpendingDoom: Dr. Kemp at first ignores a terrified local who runs around yelling, "'Visible Man a-coming!" but soon learns better.
45* HardToLightFire: Griffin's first experience sneaking around invisibly occurs because, having prepared to ignite his apartment and destroy all clues to what he's been up to, he realizes he has no matches and needs to swipe some from downstairs.
46* HaveAGayOldTime: The original subtitle "''A Grotesque Romance''." "Romance" in this sense referred to the fact the story was going to be unrealistic. Wells, after all, was known for calling his science fiction work "scientific romances."
47** Iping is also described as "gay with bunting" for Whit-Monday.
48* HeroAntagonist: [[VillainProtagonist Griffin]] gets far more focus than any other character in the novel, while Dr. Kemp is ultimately the one to foil him. From Griffin's perspective, Kemp is a traitor and a villain, but to everyone else, their roles are obviously switched.
49* ImprovisedWeapon: Throughout the book, Griffin and his enemies all frequently make use of whatever is to hand in order to defend themselves or to attack.
50* InhumanEyeConcealers: Griffin usually augments his BandagedFace with dark glasses in order to conceal his invisible eyes - either so he can hide his true nature while in public or so he can make himself easier to talk to in private conversations. This is usually the case in adaptations of the story as well.
51* InvisibleJerkass: And ''{{Jerkass}}'' is a very charitable way to describe Griffin.
52* InvisibleStomachVisibleFood: the TropeCodifier.
53** Food eaten by someone invisible is visible until it is digested. A bit eerie. And useful for seeing said people.
54** Griffin smokes a cigar at one point, and Kemp can see the smoke swirling around inside his mouth and nasal passages.
55* InvisibleStreaker
56* {{Invisibility}}
57* ItsAllAboutMe: Griffin is a classic [[TheSociopath sociopath]] in that he doesn't give a damn about ''anyone'' but himself. Over the course of the book he commits multiple counts of theft, arson, and at least one murder (with several others attempted and one possible: he didn't bother to check if the man survived) and all the while the main theme of his conversation with Kemp is about how unfair the world is to him.
58* LaughingMad
59* LovableCoward: Thomas Marvel.
60* MadScientist: Although he really flips out [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity when he turns invisible]], Griffin's brain was clearly being consumed by his project long before that. When he returns to his hometown for his father's funeral, he wanders around in what would be now called a dissociative state.
61* MisappliedPhlebotinum: Though Griffin does state that he can turn cloth invisible, he never makes himself invisible clothes.
62** [[SubvertedTrope Perhaps those clothes would simply make someone appear to be naked?]]
63* MugglesDoItBetter: Griffin's "reign of terror" is pretty short-lived, once the locals get to hunting him down.
64* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In something of an in-story AlternateCharacterInterpretation, the narrator raises this trope as a possibility for why Griffin seemingly abandons his weapon and disappears for several hours after he [[spoiler: kills Mr. Wicksteed, the first (and possibly only) victim of his short-lived Reign]]:
65--> He was certainly an [[ItsAllAboutMe intensely egotistical]] and [[TheSociopath unfeeling man]], but [[spoiler: the sight of his victim, his first victim, bloody and pitiful at his feet, may have released some long pent fountain of remorse which for a time may have flooded whatever scheme of action he had contrived.]]
66** The narrator even [[ThrowTheDogABone throws Griffin a bone]] by pointing out that he was possibly walking around with the iron bar simply for self-defense, not intending to actually hurt anyone with it.
67* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Griffin steals the clothes of Cuss and Reverend Bunting. The former only has his pants taken, while the poor Reverend loses "every single stitch" of his clothes. He is described as making a "memorable flight" through the village in order to escape the Invisible Man's wrath, barely concealing his nakedness using a rug and newspaper.
68* NakedPeopleTrappedOutside: [[InvisibleStreaker Although, granted, it isn't much of a problem for Griffin.]]
69** This also befalls Reverend Bunting after Griffin steals his and Cuss' clothes. At first he manages to salvage his dignity since he's inside the parlor at the Coach and Horses, but after the Invisible Man doubles back to the inn in a rage, the Reverend is forced to escape out a window with naught but the hearth rug and a newspaper to cover his nudity.
70* NewEraSpeech: It's a warning letter, not a speech, but the spirit is the same.
71* NoFaceUnderTheMask: The iconic scene in which the title character removes the bandages from his face.
72* OneBulletLeft
73* PoliceAreUseless: Averted. Jaffers the village constable in Iping is rather quick on the uptake, and Port Burdock's Colonel Adye is a pretty brave (if reckless) policeman as well, able to deduce that Griffin stole the money he gave to Mrs. Hall. His two subordinate constables are also pretty badass, fending Griffin (who has a gun and an axe) off with fireplace pokers. They're not wholly successful, but only for the same reasons that anyone would have difficulties against an opponent who was invisible.
74* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Griffin casually drops the N word in one scene and makes antisemitic comments about his Jewish landlord. Hard to say how much of this is ValuesDissonance and how much is a deliberate effort to make him unlikable by the relatively-progressive Wells, but it definitely comes across as this trope to modern readers.
75* ProfessorGuineaPig: Griffin takes his invisibility treatment after previously only trying it out on a cat. Granted, since he'd removed himself from the science world and needed an albino subject, his options were pretty limited, plus he was trying to escape his suspicious landlord.
76* RedEyesTakeWarning
77* ReignOfTerror: Griffin says that's what he'll try to achieve in England (and the world, eventually) with those exact words.
78* ScrewTheRulesIHaveSupernaturalPowers
79* ShoutOut: In chapter 17, before meeting Griffin, Kemp thinks over [[Literature/TheTimeMachine "remote speculation of social conditions of the future, and lost [himself] at last over the time dimension."]]
80* SinisterShades
81* SirSwearsALot: One early sign of the bandage-wrapped stranger's villainy is his frequent [[NarrativeProfanityFilter unspecified cursing]]. One character's encounter with invisible Griffin consists of him overhearing somebody swearing in an apparently-empty road.
82* TheSociopath: Griffin is chillingly unconcerned about anyone but himself even before he goes invisible (i.e. he robs his father, who [[DrivenToSuicide kills himself]] in response. Griffin doesn't especially care). Not to mention his erratic temper and his grandiose belief in his own plans.
83* StaircaseTumble: While escaping from Kemp's house, the invisible Griffin violently knocks Colonel Adye down the stairs.
84* SunglassesAtNight: Justified, since he's trying to hide the fact that his eyes are invisible.
85* SureLetsGoWithThat: A substantial part of Chapters 20-23 is Griffin, having just assumed that Kemp is going to act as his confederate, lecturing Kemp about how he became invisible complete with confident assertions about how 'they' are going to change the world or dismissive claims how whatever horrible thing Griffin did was in fact totally justified. Kemp's usual response to this can pretty much be summed up as "Uh-hmm, uh-hmmm, yep, yep, sure, absolutely, [[BlatantLies that totally sounds like a sane and rational thing to do]], yep," to keep Griffin talking and distracted until the policemen that Kemp has summoned show up. Needless to say, as the things Griffin casually describes himself doing become increasingly horrible, Kemp's efforts to keep the pretence that he's totally on Griffin's side become increasingly strained.
86* TakeOverTheWorld: The reign of Invisible Man the First.
87* ThatManIsDead
88* ThisWasHisTrueForm: [[spoiler: Griffin becomes visible upon his death.]]
89* UnbuiltTrope: Along with being the one of the first novels to have a invisible person, the novel is also one of the first to explore the numerous problems and disadvantages that would come with being invisible. Such as the fact, he can't eat and drink as they would render him visible to people along with various things such as dirt and mud. Also the fact he can't stay completely invisible in the England weather as he is naked and is forced to make people help him.
90* UncertainDoom: The novel never does confirm whether [[spoiler:Adye]] dies from the gunshot or not. Even Kemp himself who witnesses the shooting is unsure of whether he lived or not, and the epilogue is maddeningly vague about whether [[spoiler:Adye]]'s questioning of Marvel about the notebooks happened before or after the shooting.
91-->"He's killed [[spoiler:Adye]]. Shot him anyhow."
92* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Constable Jaffers sure is laid back upon discovering that the man he's come to arrest is invisible. At first he tries to convince himself that Griffin is merely difficult to see in the dimly-lit room, but soon can't ignore the truth. Despite this, he's described as being so practical-minded that he not only doesn't flip out and panic but proceeds with his duties (or tries to) as if an invisible thief is the most normal thing in the world.
93* VillainProtagonist: Kemp isn't introduced until about halfway through and for most of the story Griffin is basically the main character.
94* VomitDiscretionShot: Unique variant; while Griffin never actually vomits, and the fact that his food remains visible until fully digested is a plot point, no actual description of what it ''looks'' like is given (the closest is a suggestion that it looks vague and indistinct as it's gradually being digested into his system). Even Kemp, who witnesses Griffin eating and does describe how it appears when the man smokes, doesn't say a word about being grossed out by watching food being chewed, swallowed, or liquefied in mid-air.
95* WeirdMoon: The third paragraph of Chapter 17 tells us that "The moon in its first quarter hung over the westward hill". Yet the first paragraph of Chapter 18, one to three hours after the above, says "Outside the night was very quiet and still, and the new moon was setting over the down." Apart from the fact that a new moon rises and sets with the sun -- so if one is setting, it can't yet be night -- there's simply no way that the moon can go from first-quarter to new in only a few hours.
96* WhamLine: [[spoiler:"I robbed the old man--robbed my father. The money was not his, and he shot himself."]] Before this point, it is not impossible for the reader to sympathize with Griffin, despite his being a {{Jerkass}}, because he seems driven to his worse actions by the suspicion and mistreatment of the rural provincials and the stresses of his unusual situation. This is where Griffin's true personality really starts becoming apparent.
97* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In universe, Kemp wonders what happened to the invisible cat and the costume shop owner Griffin assaulted and left tied up. Griffin couldn't care less about either.
98** As noted above, we also never entirely learn the fate of [[spoiler:Adye]].
99* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Griffin may not have been all that stable before the invisibility experiments, but their effects on him pushed him over the edge.
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