But what if a man could become unseen? What if, like a primitive
deity, he could transform himself into an invisible but murderously powerful
presence? Would this, at a single stroke, free him from the bounds of ordinary
morality and into a new, savage, absolutely individualistic universe? .
. . there were a number of arguments abroad at the end of the nineteenth
century that the next stage of social evolution might lead to a "new man"
who would be godlike in his potency and demonic in his freedom from conventional
ideas of morality.
. . . (In The Invisible Man) there is a special sense of urgency, a
special sense of the apocalyptic, (for example) in a scene like the following,
when the Invisible Man firsts reveals himself and runs amok in the small
town of Iping, where he has been conductiong his experiments:
There were excited cries of "Hold him!" and so forth, and a
young fellow, a stranger in a place whose name did not come to light, rushed
in at once, caught something, missed his hold, and fell over the constable's
prostrate body. Half-way across the road a woman screamed as something
pushed by her; a dog kicked apparently, yelped and ran howling into Huxter's
yard, and with that the transit of the Invisible Man was accomplished.
For a space people stood amazed and gesticulating, and then came Panic,
and scattered them abroad through the village as a gust scatters dead leaves.
Back
to Beginning