Describe the appearance of the stranger when he arrived at the inn. What were the
rumours regarding his bandages?
Answers
A mysterious man, Griffin, arrives at the local inn of the English village of Iping,
West Sussex, during a snowstorm. The stranger wears a long-sleeved, thick
coat and gloves, his face hidden entirely by bandages except for a fake pink
nose, and a wide-brimmed hat. He is excessively reclusive, irascible, and
unfriendly. He demands to be left alone and spends most of his time in his
rooms working with a set of chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only
venturing out at night. While staying at the inn, hundreds of strange glass
bottles arrive that Griffin calls his luggage. Many local townspeople believe this
to be very strange. He becomes the talk of the village (one of the novel's most
charming aspects is its portrayal of small-town life in southern England, which
the author knew from first-hand experience).
Meanwhile, a mysterious burglary occurs in the village. Griffin has run out of
money and was trying to find a way to pay for his board and lodging. When his
landlady demands he pay his bill and quit the premises, he reveals part of his
invisibility to her in a fit of pique. An attempt to apprehend the stranger is
frustrated when he undresses to take advantage of his invisibility, fights off his
would-be captors, and flees to the downs.
There Griffin coerces a tramp, Thomas Marvel, into becoming his assistant.
With Marvel, he returns to the village to recover three notebooks that contain
records of his experiments. When Marvel attempts to betray the Invisible Man
to police, Griffin chases him to the seaside town of Port Burdock, threatening
to kill him. Marvel escapes to a local inn and is saved by the people at the inn,
but Griffin escapes. Marvel later goes to the police and tells them of this
"invisible man," then requests to be locked up in a high - security jail.
Griffin's furious attempt to avenge his betrayal leads to his being shot. He
takes shelter in a nearby house that turns out to belong to Dr. Kemp, a former
an acquaintance from medical school. To Kemp, he reveals his true identity: the
Invisible Man is Griffin, a former medical student who left medicine to devote
himself to optics. Griffin recounts how he invented medicine capable of
rendering bodies invisible and, on impulse, performed the procedure on
himself.
Griffin tells Kemp of the story of how he became invisible. He explains how he
tried the invisibility on a cat, then himself. Griffin burns down the boarding
the house he was staying in along with all his equipment he used to turn invisible to cover his tracks, but soon realizes he is ill-equipped to survive in the open.
He attempts to steal food and clothes from a large department store, and
eventually steals some clothing from a theatrical supply shop and heads to
Iping to attempt to reverse the invisibility. But now he imagines that he can
make Kemp his secret confederate, describing his plan to begin a "Reign of
Terror" by using his invisibility to terrorize the nation.
Kemp has already denounced Griffin to the local authorities and is waiting for
help to arrive as he listens to this wild proposal. When the authorities arrive at
Kemp's house, Griffin fights his way out and the next day leaves a note
announcing that Kemp himself will be the first man to be killed in the "Reign of
Terror". Kemp, a cool-headed character, tries to organize a plan to use himself
as bait to trap the Invisible Man, but a note he sends is stolen from his servant
by Griffin.
Griffin shoots and injures a local policeman who comes to Kemp's aid, then
breaks into Kemp's house. Kemp bolts for the town, where the local citizenry
comes to his aid. Griffin is seized, assaulted, and killed by a mob. The Invisible
Man's naked, battered body gradually becomes visible as he dies. A local
the policeman shouts to cover his face with a sheet, then the book concludes.