The Invisible Man Themes

The Invisible Man Themes

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...

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 i...

Science

Science takes on a lot of different roles in The Invisible Man. First, it's what scientists do to work out problems they have. For instance, we hear from the Invisible Man about how he developed hi...

Power

This isn't a book about using a superpower to fight evil. (Although, we can totally imagine that book, where the Invisible Man teams up with Captain Nemo to fight crime in late Victorian-era Englan...

Awe and Amazement

Let's see: an invisible man starts wreaking havoc on a small town. We're pretty sure the reaction won't be calm and collected analysis. In The Invisible Man, as you might have guessed, it's awe and...

Wealth

We often remember The Invisible Man as the story of an isolated mad scientist fighting against the larger community. But there's a whole other issue that often gets forgotten: money. The Invisible...

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...

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 (which we suppose is only...

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 I...