What is the Invisible Man?
The Invisible Man is a novel written in 1897 by prolific early sci fi author H.G Wells, originally serialised in Pearsons Weekly the story follows the residents of the small countryside English village of Iping as their peaceful days are disturbed by the arrival of a bandaged stranger who takes residence in the Coach and Horses Inn.
Things quickly start unravelling as the townsfolk's relentless investigation of their newcomer (and his inability to pay the rent) forces him to reveal himself as the mad scientist Dr/Mr/Professor?? Griffin who, having turned himself completely invisible and being unable to reverse the process, now plans to use his newfound power to go on a reign of terror in order to gain power and control for himself.Why it interests me
The framing of the story (though it's not immediately evident that any framing exists) is that of some kind of journalist who, having interviewed all the living people involved in the story, is now attempting to peice together a cohesive narrative of events surrounding Griffin's ramage through the countryside and having to pick through rumours and hyperbole to find something resembling the truth of the matter, only to fall into biases all on their own.
The thing that initially interested me in this book when I was a teen was how, since what we are hearing is only what people are choosing to tell us after the fact and not the actual truth of the event, each person's description of their interactions with Griffin could tell us indirectly about them as a character
Pick a different recurring character each time you reread the book and focus only on their side of the story and, though you might get the same basic series of events, the tone and colour of those events change drastically from perspective to perspective. You might then notice how the people of Iping immediately assume Griffin is dangerous and begin acting hostile towards him long before he ever proves their suspicions right, or how even the narrator refuses to call him anything but "The Stranger" or "The Invisible Man" almost as him trying to ignore his humanity, how Kemp, despite Griffin's instance that he is a coward and a traitor, in all the story Kemp is the only person to call Griffin by his real name and the only one to step in to beg the angry mob to have mercy on him. Obviously Griffin is very much still the villian and a cunt, but on each progressive read it get a little less black and white.
What especially caught my obsession was how Griffin is the only character not to be able to say his peice in the end. Sure he gets to have a chat with his old pal Kemp where he explains a few things but in the end Kemp is the one narrating his experience of listening to Griffin, its not a direct speech. The man the whole story is named after and he's so isolated and alienated from all the rest of humanity that he only exists as local cryptid, never a person with a say in his own story. He fascinates me.
Behold! The man who made me realise I'm asexual!
Meet the Griffins
Griffin - The Original
The Misanthrope that started it all, my sweet cheese, my good times boy, my beloved ♡ I won't get too into all the reasons I love him here because I've got an entire shrine here to do that but needless to say he's great.
For as aggressive as Griffin can be what always struck me about him wasn't his sadism or anger issues but his distinct (unfortunately at one point relatable) brand of self isolation and aversion to people. He starts is story as a borderline hikiomori rarely leaving his home and having no family or friends to connect to, then when he arrives in Iping he attempts to do the same secluding himself in his room at the Coach and Horses keeping a paranoid distance from the town folk around him.
He's so people averse he literally turns himself invisible and yet despite all this his goals consistently relate to his desire to be seen and respected by those very same people, first wanting to use his science as a way to gain fame and adoration through something he understands and is passionate about and then to be worshipped as a king or God so high above the normal crowd they could never hurt him again and yet would always rever him.
Alan Crystal - The Invisible Man 2005 TV series by Moonscoop Group
Ah yes the plain white bread of Griffin adaptations. This show is bad and not in the funny way, in the boring way, but it has a cute design for our boy and makes for some nice gifs.
Honestly what intrests me more here is how it represents a strange trend of making the invisible man a secret agent, not writing a story about a secret agent who is invisible but straight up making continuations of the original story where in either Griffin or his descendant is contacted by the government to become a secret agent. This has been happening since as far back as The Invisible Man Returns
I don't mind, even my favourite fanfic The Y Files (which you should all read even if you haven't read any gothic lit) pulls it off. It's just a little weird ya know.
Anyway the whole series is on YouTube if you wanna have a bad time.
Hawley Griffin - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore
Hawley here (who was named after a victorian serial killer) is a sly and deceitful little sociopath who takes a certain amount of glee in the power he has over others. He's exactly the kind of arrogant, dangerous, egotist the Iping resistants in the original novel thought he was and I should love him for that.
Unfortunately he also rapes a main character.
Just the fact that Moore does attempt to tackle Mina's trauma around her sexual assault by Dracula but doesn't even bother to bring up her assault by Hawley ever again should tell you everything you need to know about the reasons this scene was included. At best it's shock value, at worst...
Honestly at this point if the most intresting spin you can put on invisibility is the same as what a pervy teenage boy might say he'd do if he got that power, it says alot more about you then it does about the theme of what people would be willing to do if able to get away with it. Especially since the original book already tackles that without making Griffin a rapist.
I am not a fan of Alan Moore...
In Kemp we trust
02/03/24 - Started construction, wrote introduction, added a buncha pics.
15/03/24 - Added OG Griffin to the 'Meet the Griffins' section. Added the Kemp Appreciation Board.