The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man continues telling Kemp of his journey:

He sought supplies at a large department store called Omniums. He snuck into a pile of blankets and felt happiness for the first time since becoming invisible. Asleep, however, he had a nightmare about being accidentally pushed into a coffin and buried alive because no one could see him. When he awoke, he took clothes from the store—but, fully dressed, he was now visible to the policemen who pursued him through the store. He desperately needed the clothing to survive the snow, but he now had to undress to maintain invisibility. Unable to figure a way to abscond with his “plunder” (102), he left empty-handed.

As the Invisible Man details his beleaguered travels, Kemp starts to understand how invisibility could be more of a burden than a gift—but the Invisible Man is not done with his story:

He walked to Covent Garden Market, where there was a theater shop full of costumes. Trying to suppress sneezes from a cold, he waited in the shop to steal clothing and a fake, disguise nose. The shopkeeper sensed his presence and searched the building, suspecting rats or some other being. The Invisible Man grew tired of hiding from the old man, so he knocked him out with a step stool.

Listening to the story, Kemp is dismayed and admonishes Griffin for flouting “the common conventions of humanity” (106). Remorseless, the Invisible Man explains the necessity of stopping the shopkeeper. The Invisible Man continues his story, describing the discovery of a hunchback’s costume and a plentitude of gold. He then talks about how he donned a “grotesque [...] theatrical” (108) disguise. He took his new clothes and money to a restaurant, before realizing there was no way to sit and enjoy a meal without revealing his invisibility. Suddenly, he says, it dawned on him that invisibility is not what he’d hoped: “For this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed and bandaged caricature of a man!” (109).

Kemp asks if Griffin really must act so criminally, and Griffin argues that Kemp can’t possibly understand his hardship.

Kemp still listens to the Invisible Man’s story, pretending to commiserate and consider a partnership. Griffin has an idea to move to Spain or Algiers; Warm weather would make it easier to live nude, ending his need for disguise. He also thinks, however, that he could live and work in England now that he has Kemp’s alliance. Griffin assumes he will be able to manipulate Kemp into doing his bidding.

Meanwhile, Kemp has alerted the police, and he tries to hide their approach by bodily blocking the window. Indeed, the Invisible Man is unaware until the police have entered the house a floor below. If Kemp has any doubts about turning Griffin in, they evaporate as the Invisible Man declares he “must now establish a Reign of Terror” (112) and control the town through brute force. Kemp fails to lock the Invisible Man inside, and he escapes, knocking Colonel Adye down the stairs.

Kemp explains to Adye that the Invisible Man is “inhuman. He is pure selfishness” (115) and must be stopped. Kemp uses the knowledge gleaned from Griffin’s stories to instruct Adye how best to capture him. He believes that the Invisible Man won’t leave before retrieving his books from Marvel (who is safe in a holding cell). He recommends they starve Griffin out, keeping dogs and men on the hunt.

The Invisible Man escapes Kemp’s house and disappears. During this time, “the countryside began organizing itself with inconceivable rapidity” (117). The trains are blocked, mounted police patrol the area, and rumors of Mr. Wicksteed’s murder have circulated widely: Reportedly, the Invisible Man bludgeoned him to death after Mr. Wicksteed began following the Invisible Man’s footprints. Witnesses heard the Invisible Man, after murdering Mr. Wicksteed, “wailing and laughing, sobbing and groaning” (120). He finds food and later sleeps, and in the morning he is “prepared for his last great struggle against the world” (120).

Kemp receives a letter from the Invisible Man. The letter “announces the first day of Terror” (121). The Invisible Man proclaims a new era and threatens to kill them all if necessary. He intends to kill Kemp first, to set an example. Kemp takes the letter seriously and begins securing himself and his staff in his home. He sends a servant with a letter to Colonel Adye, but the Invisible Man attacks the servant as she is leaving the house. Colonel Adye manages to get inside Kemp’s house just in time. The Invisible Man begins smashing all the windows.

Adye needs to call for backup, and convinces Kemp to lend his revolver. The Invisible Man attacks Adye just outside the house and steals the revolver, shooting Adye. It’s unclear whether the colonel is dead or just wounded. Three policemen approach the house from the back, unaware of Adye. The Invisible Man enters the house and battles the officers using an ax. They dodge his ax and shoot him at least once. In the chaos, Kemp and a housemaid escape through a smashed window and flee.

Kemp tears down the hill, closely pursued by the Invisible Man. Kemp tries to seek shelter in someone’s home but the owner refuses. He continues running the very same path that Marvel used earlier when he fled the Invisible Man. When Kemp reaches the village square, Griffin ambushes him and strikes him several times. People come out to help, and an altercation ensues. The Invisible Man tries to strangle Kemp, but because of his gunshot wound he is weak in one arm. This injury allows Kemp and others to finally restrain him.

Kemp doesn’t want him killed, but the Invisible Man dies by the men’s forceful efforts to restrain him. After his breathing and heartbeat stop, his body slowly becomes visible, showing a man in his thirties with albino skin and red eyes. They cover him with a sheet: “And there it was [...] that Griffin, the first of all men to make himself invisible, Griffin, the most gifted physicist the world has ever seen, ended in infinite disaster his strange and terrible career” (133).

Marvel now lives comfortably as a bachelor. After the Invisible Man’s death, Marvel kept the money that his old captor forced him to steal, and he also earned money by telling the tale of the Invisible Man to audiences. He now runs an inn that he purchased with his loot. He swears to anyone who asks that he never had possession of the three books which hold the secrets to invisibility. Yet, every Sunday night, he sits in secrecy, engrossed in the well-hidden books, hoping to achieve invisibility: “And though Kemp has fished unceasingly, no human being [...] knows those books are there [...] and none other will know of them until [Marvel] dies” (135).