"Misdirected and self-serving ambition essentially remains an exercise in futility." Describe Griffin's character in the light of the above statement.
Answers
Undoubtedly, Griffin’s misdirected and self-serving ambition ambition not only proved futile, but also drove him to the verge of disaster from where he easily tipped over and fell into the chasm of disaster. Unquestionably, he was a great scientist; but he was not a good human being. If he had guided his ambition through morality, he would have avoided a tragic end.
Griffin had no conscience; he was callous towards other people and simply self-centered. He appeared to be at war with the entire mankind. All his actions stemmed from his desire to save himself, with not a thought about the pain he inflicted on others. That some traits were inborn can be seen in how he hid his work from his own professor, lest he or anyone else claimed the credit from it. When he was short of money he continued his experiments, without any thoughts of the consequences, he robed his own father, who committed suicide because the money was not his. He attended his father’s funeral without feeling sorry for his own act; instead he blamed his father for being a sentimental fool. He experimented on a cat, with no concern for the poor creature’s cries of pain. He threw it out and never tried to find whether it was alive or dead. He burnt down the house at Great Portland Street when the landlord and his sons found about his experiments and were horrified. He was only worried about covering his trail.
After becoming invisible he committed one brutal act after another, not because they were necessary for his survival, but simply because he enjoyed doing them. The way he looted his owner of a small costume shop, and left after striking the old man on his head, spoke volumes about his inhumanity. He terrorized Marvel when he was on the run, fought with the policemen. His plan to spread reign of terror among people using his powers of invisibility really shocked Dr. Kemp. He even tried to kill him for betraying him. In his final run from the people hunting him, he killed an old man with a rod because he bumped into him.
All the above mentioned incidents prove Griffin’s unbridled ambition led him to self-perdition.