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Invisible Man

Ralph ellison, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Invisible Man is the story of a young man searching for his identity, unsure about where to turn to define himself. As the narrator states at the novel’s beginning, “All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned somebody tried to tell me what it was.” It is undoubtedly clear that the narrator’s blackness comprises a large part of his identity, although this isn’t something he has necessarily chosen. For others in the novel, it is simply convenient to define the narrator through his blackness.

Ellison’s narrator explains that the outcome of this is a phenomenon he calls “invisibility”—the idea that he is simply “not seen” by his oppressors. Ellison implies that if racists really saw their victims, they would not act the way they do. The narrator recognizes his invisibility slowly—in moments like the hospital machine, when he realizes he is being asked to respond to the question of who he is in terms of his blackness. Ultimately, the narrator is forced to retreat to his hole, siphoning off the light from the white-owned power company, itself a symbol of an underground resistance that may go unacknowledged for a long time.

However, invisibility doesn’t come from racism alone. Just as poisonous for the narrator are other generalized ways of thinking about identity—ideas that envision him as a cog in a machine instead of a unique individual. This is true for the narrator both at the unnamed black university and at Liberty Paints. However, it is the Brotherhood, a thinly veiled take on the Communist Party, that proves to be most disillusioning for the narrator. The Brotherhood provides a systematic way of thinking about the world that claims to be the solution to racism and inequality.

When the narrator first meets Brother Jack , Jack says, “You mustn’t waste your emotions on individuals, they don’t count.” At first, the narrator embraces this ideology of the Brotherhood and structures his identity around it. However, he comes to discover that the Brotherhood is perfectly willing to sacrifice him for its own potentially flawed ends. Thus the novel can be read not only as a story about a black man’s struggle against racism, but a black man’s struggle to grow up and learn to be himself, against the backdrop of intense social pressures, racism among others.

Identity and Invisibility ThemeTracker

Identity and Invisibility Quotes in Invisible Man

I am an invisible man…I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

Without light I am not only invisible, but formless as well; and to be unaware of one’s form is to live a death. I myself, after existing some twenty years, did not become alive until I discovered my invisibility.

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which, and only I, could answer.

Already he’s learned to repress not only his emotions but his humanity. He’s invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir! The mechanical man!

A tremor shook me; it was as though he had suddenly given a name to, had organized the vagueness that drifted through my head, and I was overcome with swift shame. I realized that I no longer knew my own name. I shut my eyes and shook my head with sorrow.

One moment I believed, I was dedicated, willing to lie on the blazing coals, do anything to attain a position on the campus—then snap! It was done with, finished, through. Now there was only the problem of forgetting it.

This was a new phase, I realized, a new beginning, and I would have to take that part of myself that looked on with remote eyes and keep it always at the distance of the campus, the hospital machine, the battle royal—all now far behind. Perhaps the part of me that observed listlessly but saw all, missing nothing, was still…the dissenting voice, my grandfather part; the cynical disbelieving part—the traitor self that always threatened internal discord.

And it went so fast and smoothly that it seemed not to happen to me but to someone who actually bore my new name. I almost laughed into the phone when I heard the director of Men's House address me with profound respect. My new name was getting around. It's very strange, I thought, but things are so unreal for them normally that they believe that to call a thing by name is to make it so. And yet I am what they think I am.

Why did he choose to plunge into nothingness, into the void of faceless faces, of soundless voices, lying outside history?...But not quite, for actually it is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those events that the recorder regards as important that are put down, the lies his keepers keep their power by.

Men out of time, who would soon be gone and forgotten…who knew but that they were the saviors, the true leaders, the bearers of something precious? The stewards of something uncomfortable, burdensome, which they hated because, living outside the realm of history, there was no one to applaud their value and they themselves failed to understand it….What if history was a gambler, instead of a force in a laboratory experiment, and the boys his ace in the hole?

His world was possibility and he knew it. He was years ahead of me and I was a fool…The world in which we lived was without boundaries. A vast seething, hot world of fluidity, and Rine the rascal was at home. Perhaps only Rine the rascal was at home in it.

I began to accept my past and, as I accepted it, I felt memories welling up within me. It was as though I’d learned suddenly to look around corners; images of past humiliations flickered through my head and I saw that they were more than separate experience. They were me; they defined me.

I looked at Ras on his horse and at their handful of guns and recognized the absurdity of the whole night and of the simple yet confoundingly complex arrangement of hope and desire, fear and hate, that had brought me here still running, and knowing now who I was and where I was and knowing too that I had no longer to run for or from the Jacks and the Emersons and the Bledsoes and Nortons, but only from their confusion, impatience, and refusal to recognize the beautiful absurdity of their American identity and mine.

Let me be honest with you—a feat which…I find of the utmost difficulty. When one is invisible he finds such problems as good and evil, honesty and dishonesty, of such shifting shapes that he confuses one with the other…I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I’ve tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied—not even I.

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

Invisible Man

86 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-21

Chapter 22-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

Invisible Man was published in 1952 and written by African American author Ralph Ellison. It won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1953, and Ellison was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1985 for his contributions to American literature. In addition to his fiction, he wrote essays and was a professor, teaching at several prestigious American universities including Yale University, Bard College, New York University, the University of Chicago, and Rutgers University. He also received medals from two US presidents as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom and various international honors. Invisible Man is a 20th-century realist novel that examines the issue of African American oppression in 1930s America.

This guide refers to the 1980 Random House edition.

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Plot Summary

Invisible Man ’s protagonist is a young Black man whose name is never given in the text. He grows up in the Jim Crow southern region of the US and is driven to try to achieve professional success even in a segregated world in which he is the victim of racial stereotypes and discrimination. As a graduating high school senior, he is invited to give a graduation speech at a reception attended by prominent White men in his hometown. However, he quickly finds that the event is an excuse to force young Black men to entertain the White people by boxing blindfolded and afterwards scrambling on an electrified carpet for fake money. At the end of the night, he’s given a briefcase with notification inside that he has been admitted to a Black college.

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Several years later, the protagonist angers the college’s president by taking an esteemed White founder to impoverished areas surrounding the college rather than presenting a more “sanitized” view of the area. The president punishes him by sending him to New York City, ostensibly just for the summer so he can learn to interact with White people in a professional way. The president sends sealed letters that he claims are recommendations to prominent White men in New York. Upon his arrival, the protagonist discovers that the letters actually tell the White men that the protagonist has been expelled and not to give him work, stranding him in the city without any savings.

Desperate to earn money, the protagonist works one day in a paint factory, where an explosion injures him. He’s treated in the factory hospital and involuntarily undergoes a lobotomy-like procedure, then is released and told he’ll be “compensated” for his trouble. The protagonist finds another job with an organization called the Brotherhood of Man as a community activist and orator. The Brotherhood works under what seems to be a strict code of ethics that appeals to the protagonist, and he enjoys his work for a while, becoming familiar with other activists in Harlem, where he’s based.

After a few months of growing disagreement and contention between the Brotherhood and the protagonist, he’s sent out of Harlem for a while. Upon his return, he finds that the Brotherhood has abandoned its work in Harlem, leaving the people it assisted desperate and without resources. Enraged by the Brotherhood’s actions and the unjust death of a fellow activist, he stages a funeral that raises an outcry against White authorities from the Harlem community.

The protagonist is thrown into the race riots that erupt and realizes that the Brotherhood means to make him a scapegoat for the unrest. Having been let down repeatedly by the people and groups who once had his respect, he finally decides that he will determine his own sense of self rather than letting it be dictated to him. During the riots, he falls down a manhole and uses it as a chance to stage a “disappearance.” His absence lets him spend some years living a quiet life in Harlem before he reemerges, ready to rejoin the effort of social causes. Ellison combines psychological and social storylines in Invisible Man , examining the effects of racism on his protagonist and his ability, nonetheless, to rise above the difficulties he encounters to craft his own sense of self. 

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Invisible Man

By ralph ellison.

• Invisible Man Summary

The novel opens with a Prologue describing the depressed state of the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the novel. He is an invisible man, he proclaims, and has taken to living unknown underground, sucking electricity from the state of New York into his many light bulbs that he has hung in his lair. The novel is to be the story of how he came to be in this position.

As a young boy, the narrator overhears the last words of his dying grandfather, whose message lingers with him through high school. He is struck with this idea when he is asked to give his college oration to the town's most honored white men. At the fancy ballroom where he attends the occasion, he is ushered into the battle royal with the other boys hired for the evening's entertainment. First however the boys are brought into the room where a naked woman dances. The boys are next blindfolded and pitted against each other in a boxing ring. After several fights, only the narrator and the largest boy, Tatlock , remain and they are told they must fight each other for a prize.

The next stage requires the boys to grab for gold coins on a rug which turns out to be electrified. The narrator is finally allowed to give his oration and is awarded a scholarship to a renowned black college. At college, he is first faced with the disillusionment which will overcome him by the end. The memory is painful as he relates the day he was given the honor of driving an old white trustee, Mr. Norton , around the campus. The drive goes smoothly for a while although Mr. Norton's questions surprise the narrator. Norton sees every student at the college as part of his fate. He also welcomes a chance to explore parts of the surrounding town . Mistakenly, the narrator drives Norton into a poor district of black sharecroppers and Norton is intrigued by a disgraced member of the community, Jim Trueblood , who is rumored to have impregnated both his wife and daughter. Trueblood gives a long description of the dream which made him commit the act of incest and resulted in his wife trying to kill him. After this episode, Norton feels faint and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day brothel in order to find whisky to revive him. Mental patients visiting the bar unfortunately rise up against their attendant, trapping the narrator and Norton in the middle of the fight. Falling unconscious, Norton is revived by a former doctor who speaks to him of the narrator's invisibility. Thinking the doctor insane, he and the narrator finally return to the college where the narrator is punished for his treatment of Mr. Norton. The college president, Dr. Bledsoe , relates to the narrator that he should have only showed the trustee what the college would have wanted him to see. The narrator is expelled and sent to New York with seven sealed letters to wealthy employers with the promise that he can return as a paying student in the fall. Though stunned, the narrator decides to take advantage of the opportunity to work for an important person in New York City.

Arriving in Harlem, he is dazed but excited. He rents a room at the Men's House in Harlem and sets out the next morning to start handing out his letters. That process goes smoothly although he is only able to give the letters to secretaries and is told the employers will contact him. After not hearing anything, the narrator becomes suspicious of the secretaries and holds the last letter back, asking first to meet with the employer, Mr. Emerson , upon which he could personally give him the letter. The narrator's efforts are once more interceded, though, as Mr. Emerson's son takes the letter from him at the office and attempts to talk him out of returning to the college or speaking to his father. Finally, the son finally shows the narrator the letter from Dr. Bledsoe which the narrator had been told not to look at. The narrator is horrified to read what is written. Bledsoe writes explicitly to the employers that the narrator will never be allowed back to the school and asks them to see to it in the meantime that he will not be able to return to school as a paying student. Disillusioned, the narrator leaves the office utterly humiliated and terribly angry. He decides to take a job at a paint factory in order to be able to plan out his revenge on Dr. Bledsoe.

The idea of revenge is jumbled during the one long day he spends working at the paint plant. His boss, Mr. Kimbro , is very brusque and demanding, putting the narrator immediately on the job with very few instructions and the order not to ask questions. When the narrator mixes the wrong ingredient into the paint because he is afraid to ask Kimbro, he is fired from that job and handed to another boss, Mr. Brockway , who works as the engineer of sorts. Brockway is paranoid that the narrator is trying to take his job and is thus quite irritable toward him, asking him many questions about his past. They get along agreeably enough until after the narrator returns from retrieving his lunch. In the lockerroom he had run into what he thinks is a union meeting, though we later realize it was a Brotherhood meeting, and it had delayed him. He explains this to Brockway who explodes in anger at his participation in a union and attacks him, refusing to listen to the narrator's explanation. The narrator feels the tension snap inside him and fights off Mr. Brockway. Because of their inattention to the gauges in the room, the tanks burst from the pressure and the narrator is covered in white paint and knocked unconscious.

He swims in and out of consciousness for what seems like days in a plant factory, surrounded by doctors who speak of lobotomies and tests which they would not try on him if he had been a white Harvard student. Desperately clutching consciousness at one point, he is asked his name but is unable to remember it. Finally, the doctors release him from the tubes and machines, saying that he has been saved though he never really knows from what. He is brought to the hospital director before he can leave, where he is told that he can no longer work at the plant but will receive ample compensation. Still foggy, he stumbles back toward the Men's House where he is relieved on his way by a strong, motherly woman named Mary Rambo . The narrator hesitantly agrees to let her take him back to her house where he can rest and revive his spirits. She feeds him and also offers him a place to stay before he returns to the Men's House. Returning to the house after his hospital stay and lowly employment, he feels inferior and realizes he can no longer reside there. After offending a man he first believes is Bledsoe, he is thrown out of the House and takes Mary up on her offer.

Able to pay rent with his compensation money, the narrator lives with Mary for a while in relative quiet. Once the winter comes to New York, the narrator feels restless and takes to wandering streets, still filled with rage toward Bledsoe. After reconnecting with his own identity by eating southern yams sold on the street, he is drawn to an eviction where an old black couple is being thrown out into the cold. A crowd has formed around the defenseless couple who shriek and cry out against the injustice. The scene of dispossession strikes the narrator to the core and he begins to speak to the crowd after the couple is denied the chance to go inside their home and pray. His emotions clashing, he stands in front of the crowd calming them and forming their chaos into an ordered rage. Once the crowd rushes the house, the narrator runs to escape lest the police come after him. Running over rooftops, he is followed by a short man who later approaches him on the street. The man introduces himself as Brother Jack and praises the narrator on his moving oration. He offers him a job with the Brotherhood, taking advantage of his speaking skills. Brushing aside the offer, the narrator later reproaches himself for not getting more details about the job when he is in such debt to Mary. He decides to accept the job in order to pay back Mary, but must stop living with her once he is accepted into the Brotherhood. His first glimpse into the organization is at the party/meeting they bring him to at the Chthonian Hotel. The upscale, mostly white crowd makes him uncomfortable but they all appear friendly and praise his action at the eviction. Brother Jack explains to the narrator that his role will be one of leading the community of Harlem in line with the Brotherhood's teachings, in the manner of Booker T. Washington. Secretly, the narrator vows to follow the example set by the college's founder instead.

The narrator leaves Mary's house the next day. In his room that morning, he finds a piggy bank in his room shaped offensively like a black man with overly exaggerated features. After breaking it by accident, he attempts to get rid of it but cannot. He is then sent to Brother Hambro for training, given a new apartment, and a new name. After completing training, the Brothers call him down to Harlem and he is shown the office where he will work, along with Brother Tarp and Brother Clifton, the handsome youth leader. He quickly becomes accustomed to his new work, relishing the ability to inspire the community around him. He and Clifton meet up with Ras the Exhorter, who competes with them for the community's support and chastises them for being traitors to their African race. The two groups fight until the narrator leads them away. Still the narrator feels secure and powerful in his position until he receives an ominous note warning him to move slowly and carefully. Alarmed, he questions Brother Tarp to see if he has any enemies. Tarp reassures him and opens up to him, relating painful parts of his past and giving to him a broken link he has saved from breaking away from a chain gang after nineteen years. Brother Wrestrum also visits on the day of the mystery note, and incites suspicion with the narrator because he seems meddlesome. His idea for a Brotherhood emblem is overshadowed by his attack on the inherently symbolic message of Tarp's chain link. The narrator agrees to be interviewed by a Harlem publication after trying to get them to speak to Clifton.

Weeks later, the narrator is called by the Brotherhood committee to an urgent meeting where he is charged by Wrestrum for attempting to overshadow and dominate the Brotherhood, naming some unknown plot against the Brotherhood and using the article the narrator was interviewed for as evidence. Until the accusations are cleared, the narrator moves downtown to speak on the Woman Question. Frustrated by the move but willing to try it, he meets a married woman who seduces him. The affair stays with him though he does not see her again, as he is frightened that the Brotherhood will find out and use it against him. Soon he is summoned to another emergency meeting which alerts him to Clifton's disappearance and reinstates him in Harlem. Returning to his old post, he finds that much is changed in the short time he has been gone. Tarp and Brother Maceo are gone as well and the spirit in the district is much subdued, as many of the people feel that the Brotherhood has let them down. Realizing he is now out of the Brotherhood loop, he plans to revive the neighborhood sentiment on his own. By chance, he finds Clifton further uptown where Clifton has become a street seller of a dancing, paper Sambo doll. Disgusted and intrigued, the narrator watches the performance and the police chase which follows, ending in the unnecessary killing of Clifton.

He decides to hold a funeral which can serve to unite the community of Harlem around a fallen hero of sorts. Though successful, the Brotherhood is outraged and meets him back in his office, at which point Jack angrily reveals that he has not been hired to think. They order that he continue in the district and send him to Hambro in order to understand the new, less aggressive program.

Thoroughly changed by Clifton's fate and the recent events, the narrator feels very angry toward the Brotherhood and walks around the neighborhood to think. He notices that the district is much more stirred by Clifton's shooting than he had presumed and he is drawn in by Ras to explain the Brotherhood's limited action following the murder. He defends their position and then moves away to buy a disguise so he will not be harmed by any of Ras's men. Surprisingly, due to dark green glasses and a wide hat, people begin to approach him and refer to him as Rinehart . He is able to go unnoticed by Ras but is constantly noticed by others as Rinehart, by lovers and zoot-suiters. Going back to a bar he normally frequented, he is still mistaken for Rinehart and is almost swept along into a fight with Brother Maceo. Later, on the way to Hambro's, the narrator uncovers a church where Rinehart is a reverend. His many identities and obvious manipulation of people's faith disturbs the narrator greatly and he approaches Hambro even more cynical than the Brotherhood left him. Hambro attempts to indoctrinate him into the new program, describing the scientific logistics, but to no avail. The narrator feels he can finally see how the Brotherhood and so many organizations in his life have swindled and manipulated their constituents. Resolved to attack the Brotherhood from the inside, he plans to "yes" the white men to death, referencing his grandfather, and to find a woman whom he can seduce into giving him inside information.

He chooses Sybil as she is vulnerable and married to an important brother, however she surprises him by wanting him to rape her. He escapes the situation when he is called uptown to Harlem for a crisis, although she attempts to tag along. A riot is in action and the narrator is swept along with it, nearly shot, and aids in the arson of an apartment building. The climax of the riot occurs when Ras rides through on a black horse dressed as a chieftain and wants the narrator hanged. Running from Ras' goons, the narrator falls down a manhole and realizes that he must live underground for awhile. The Epilogue is his resolution to reemerge into the world of social responsibility.

Invisible Man Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Invisible Man is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Who knows about invisibility and who does not know about invisibility?

Everyone learns that the Invisible Man is invisible over the course of the novel..... are you referring to a specific chapter?

Identify the relationship between the narrator and his grandfather?

The character who most fills the narrator's thoughts and fuels his fears throughout the novel is his dead grandfather. Dying with bitter words on his lips, the narrator feels his grandfather has never understood humanity but cannot help but be...

Photos or illustrations in the book

Are you referring to the Invisible man by Ralph Ellison or HG Wells?

Study Guide for Invisible Man

Invisible Man study guide contains a biography of Ralph Ellison, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Invisible Man
• Character List
• Prologue and Chapters 1-2 Summary and Analysis
• Related Links

Essays for Invisible Man

Invisible Man literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Invisible Man.

• The Values of the Invisible Man
• Stereotypes and Exploitation of Women in Invisible Man
• Food for Thought
• What America Would Be Like Without Women: An Analysis of the Trafficking of Women in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
• Illuminating the Darkness

Lesson Plan for Invisible Man

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Invisible Man
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Invisible Man Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Invisible Man

• Introduction
• Political influences and the Communist Party
• Plot summary

The Invisible Man

H. g. wells, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

A strange man (later introduced as Griffin ) arrives in Iping and takes lodging at the Coach and Horses Inn. He is completely wrapped up in clothing, which he does not take off even after Mrs. Hall , who runs the inn, lights a fire for him. Mrs. Hall notices that Griffin’s face is also wrapped in bandages. Griffin is rude to her, and impatiently asks when he will be able to get his luggage from the train station. Later that day, Griffin explains that he is an “experimental investigator” and that he needs his equipment.

The following day, the carrier Fearenside brings Griffin’s luggage, which is filled with scientific equipment, handwritten notebooks , and crates of fluids, some of which are labeled Poison . Later that day, Mrs. Hall hears the sound of bottles smashing, and when she asks Griffin about this he tells her not to bother him, saying that she can add extra charges to his bill. Griffin stays at the inn for a number of months. He does not attend church or communicate with anyone outside of the village, and only goes out at night. The villagers gossip, inventing many different theories about him. The local doctor, Cuss , visits Griffin at the inn, and is shocked to see that his sleeve is completely empty where an arm should be—yet he still manages to pinch Cuss’s nose.

On the holiday of Whit Monday, Rev. Bunting and Mrs. Bunting wake up to sounds of the vicarage being burgled. They try to catch the robber, but cannot see anyone there. The same morning, Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall notice that the door to Griffin’s room is open, and his bed is empty. They call Sandy Wadgers , the blacksmith, to change the locks so they can lock Griffin out, but while they are discussing this Griffin emerges from his room (though it had seemed empty before) and goes into the parlor, which he has been using as a personal study. He locks himself in and can be heard shouting and smashing things. Later, Mrs. Hall asks Griffin why he hasn’t paid his bill; when he offers her money, she is suspicious, as just days before he said he didn’t have anything.

When confronted by the villagers at the inn, Griffin takes off his bandages to reveal a “black cavity”—his invisible face. On learning the truth about Griffin, the villagers flee in horror. The local constable, Bobby Jaffers , attempts to arrest Griffin for burgling the vicarage, but fails and Griffin escapes.

Outside of Iping, Griffin seeks the help of a local “tramp,” Thomas Marvel . At first Marvel thinks he’s hallucinating when he hears a disembodied voice talking to him, but Griffin proves that he is real and invisible by throwing stones at him. Amazed, Marvel agrees to help Griffin, and returns to the Coach and Horses, where he seizes some of Griffin’s belongings from his room, including his notebooks. Dr. Cuss and Rev. Bunting had previously looked through the notebooks while Griffin was gone, but couldn’t understand their contents. Mr. Huxter attempts to catch Marvel but fails. Griffin smashes the windows of the inn and cuts the village’s telegraph wire before fleeing. Everyone in Iping is too scared to come out of their houses for two hours.

Marvel tries to quit his role as Griffin’s helper, but Griffin threatens to kill him if he betrays him. The next day, Marvel and Griffin reach the town of Port Stowe, and Marvel strikes up a conversation with a local mariner . The mariner tells him the rumors about the Invisible Man and shows him a newspaper article about the events in Iping. Marvel boasts that he knows about the Invisible Man from “private sources,” but after Griffin hurts him he goes back on his word and tells the mariner that the whole story is a hoax.

The narrative shifts to a man named Doctor Kemp as he sits in his office, which overlooks the town of Port Burdock. He is dismayed by local gossip about the Invisible Man and the “fools” who believe the story is real. Nearby, Marvel bursts into the Jolly Cricketers pub, explaining in terror that he needs help because the Invisible Man is after him. Griffin enters the pub too and there is a scuffle. One of the men in the pub shoots the air, attempting to hit Griffin.

Doctor Kemp’s doorbell rings, but his servant tells him that no one was there when she answered. Kemp then finds blood on his bedroom door handle and floor. In his bedroom, Griffin speaks to Kemp, and at first Kemp refuses to believe that he is really there. Griffin introduces himself, reminding Kemp that they studied together at University College London. Kemp eventually believes Griffin and gives him food and whiskey. He allows Griffin to sleep in his bedroom, and when he goes to sleep worries that Griffin might be insane and “homicidal.”

The next day, Griffin tells Kemp that years earlier, while researching light and optics, he discovered a way of turning living tissue invisible. He kept his findings to himself, worried that someone would steal them. After spending three years researching invisibility, Griffin realized that he would need money in order to actually conduct the experiment. He stole money from his father that did not actually belong to him, which led his father to shoot himself. Griffin admits that he did not feel guilt or sympathy for his father.

Griffin says he first tested his invisibility experiment on a piece of fabric, and then on his neighbor ’s cat. The cat’s pained meowing awoke his landlord , who grew suspicious of Griffin’s activities. Griffin then conducted the experiment on himself, successfully turning himself invisible. Aware of his landlord’s suspicions, he set his apartment on fire and fled. Out in the world, Griffin found it harder than he assumed to be invisible. He regularly bumped into people, was freezing because he could not wear clothes without being seen, and couldn’t eat, as food showed up in his stomach before it was fully digested. He robbed two different stores, but each time got perilously close to being discovered. He was eventually able to rob clothing and other items to disguise himself, wrapping himself up to conceal his invisibility from the world. He eventually traveled to Iping, hoping to continue his scientific research there.

Griffin tells Kemp that he plans to impose a “Reign of Terror,” killing people as he sees fit, in order to institute “the Epoch of the Invisible Man.” He hopes that Kemp will work with him, but Kemp warns him that he is choosing the wrong path. Colonel Adye then arrives at Kemp’s house, and on hearing this, Griffin shouts “Traitor!” and flees. Adye and Kemp warn everyone in the local area about Griffin’s plans, and a manhunt begins. Mr. Wicksteed , the steward to Lord Burdock , is found murdered on the grounds of Lord Burdock’s house. No one knows exactly what happened, but everyone agrees Griffin is responsible.

Griffin attacks Kemp and Adye at Kemp’s house, shooting Adye with his own gun. Kemp flees, begging for help from his neighbor Mr. Heelas , who refuses. Kemp runs into town being chased by Griffin. A mob of people descends on Griffin, and although Kemp begs them to have mercy, Griffin is beaten to death. His body becomes visible again as he dies.

In the epilogue, the narrator explains that after Griffin’s death, Marvel used the money he stole from him to become a landlord. He is now a respected man in the local area who has a “reputation for wisdom.” Sometimes Marvel shares his stories of the Invisible Man with passersby. However, he never reveals that he kept Griffin’s notebooks, which he keeps stored secretly and whose contents he does not understand.