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For Monday: Wells, The Invisible Man, Chapters I-X (1-10), pp. 47-88)



Answer TWO of the following: 

Q1: The narration of this novel is very odd: while it doesn’t have a frame narrative, it does have a narrator who seems to be omniscient, but then reduces themselves by saying in the beginning of Chapter IV, “I have told the circumstances of the stranger’s arrival in Iping with a certain fullness of detail…” (61). Why do you think the story has a nameless “I” narrator and is limited to what people can see and observe of the stranger?

Q2: What do you feel makes the Invisible Man “snap” and become what we might call today a super villain?  While he doesn’t seem necessarily evil or malicious at the beginning of the novel, he clearly becomes so by Chapter V.  Does Wells let us see the psychology of a super villain in these opening chapters?  Or is his personality, like his appearance, a mystery? 

Q3: Once the stranger becomes famous in the village, the locals begin hatching ideas as to who he is and what’s wrong with him. What are some of their theories? How might they suggest some of the fears and biases of late 19th century English society, especially considering all of these speculations prove to be wrong by the end of the novel?

Q4: It’s almost a cliché of super villainy that the mastermind has a bumbling sidekick to assist him in his nefarious schemes. Mr. Marvel was one of the first in a long line of sidekicks in this fashion. Why do you think the Invisible Man—who in Chapter IX becomes the ominous-sounding “The Voice”—chooses to recruit him? What makes him different than the other people in the village? And what does he betray to Marvel about his newfound identity?

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