There are stock yokel figures baffled by events they do not understand – which include disappearing clothes, moving furniture, interfering vicar and local doctor, doors mysteriously opening and closing, and a melee at the Whit Monday festival, with people actually crying out “Stop thief!”. The first part of the novel reads like a third rate farce, or the story line in a children’s comic. Finally, in Part 3 we are invited to witness some of its social and personal consequences.īut the problem is that there are huge differences of tone and content in the three different parts – and very little in the way of a common thread holding them all together. Then in Part 2 we are given a quasi-scientific ‘explanation’ of how this experiment has been brought about. In Part 1 we do not know why the man is invisible or how he has got into such a state.

These events constitute Part 3 of the novel, which culminates in his being killed by a man with a shovel.Īs a structure it has a lot of potential – because as readers we are as puzzled as the hapless residents of Iping by the strange events at the start of the novel.

When Kemp alerts the police to the possible danger posed by the Invisible Man, this leads to the attack on Kemp’s house then to the pursuit of the Invisible Man. His account to Kemp is Part 1 of events, or the ‘back story’. After a lot of high jinx amongst the villagers, he locates his friend Dr Kemp, to whom he then reveals the origins and the scientific basis of his experiment, and the reasons he has had to escape from London. This is the start of Part 2 in the events of the narrative. The Invisible Man is on the run when he arrives in the village of Iping at the start of the novel, causing havoc amongst the Sussex locals. In other words the novel begins part way through the story. If the actual order of events as they happened is represented by 1- 2 – 3, they are revealed to the reader in the order 2 – 1 – 3.

The story is split into three parts, which are presented out of their chronological sequence. This does not significantly alter the ‘facts’ of the main narrative, but it does introduce a shift in tone after the dramatic finale to the tale. It is worth noting that the ‘Epilogue’ that follows the end of the main story was added after the first edition. It then appeared in single volume book format later the same year in England and America. The Invisible Man was first published as an abridged serial version in Pearson’s Weekly in 1897. Tutorial, study resources, plot summary, web links

The invisible man book hg wells