It is a frigid snow-blanketed night in February in the small British village of Iping. A stranger has arrived and that description is more fitting than usual: when the landlady, Mrs. Hall, sees the man remove his hat and coat, she is petrified by what lies beneath. The man’s head is completely obscured by bandages. Stranger still, the man makes a concerted effort to keep his face from ever being seen. Mrs. Hall chalks this bizarre appearance to the aftermath of a horrific accident, but despite her loquacious efforts to engage, he never reciprocates in kind. He does inform her that she is to keep an eye out for some parcels he is anxiously awaiting. Later on, a man is sent by the landlady to repair the clock in the stranger’s room. He reluctantly agrees to this unexpected intrusion into his privacy, but only to the point of the clock actually being fixed. Once the repairman also tries to entice the stranger into conversation, the stranger suddenly turns violently angry,
The very next day, the expected parcels arrive. When he leaves his room just long enough to collect them, the delivery man’s dog bites him on the leg. He quickly retires to his leg which prompts the landlord, Mr. Hall, to follow up and check on his wound. The light is dim when the landlord enters, but there is no mistaking what he sees: the stranger has no hands. He has little time to make in much else, however, as Mr. Hall is suddenly and violently thrust from the room. Left alone for the time being, the stranger sets to unpacking his deliveries which primarily consists of books and cases of bottles. At the dinner hour, Mrs. Hall arrives with the man’s food. Just before the stranger insists that from now on anyone who wants to enter must first knock upon his door ask permission to enter, Mrs. Hall gets a very quick of the stranger’s face for the first time. It looked as if he had no eyes! The man spends the rest of the day working in secret but making a racket from the consequences of his frustrated efforts. Objects are heard hitting walls and sometimes breaking and his monologue with himself grows increasingly agitated.
That day set the tone for what follows in the subsequent days which stretch into weeks and then months. The stranger becomes a veritable recluse hiding inside his room, working all day and only occasionally venturing forth outside, always wrapped in head to toe in clothing. Suspicion sets in and quickly turns to gossip which becomes all the more intense as a result of the odd encounter one of the villages sometimes speaks of having with the weird visitor. The village doctor, Cuss, for instance, swears that one day he saw the stranger lift his arm despite there being no actual arm inside the sleeve.
Things take a definite turn for the paranoid when there is a break-in and theft as the vicarage. The vicar and his missus cautiously investigated upon the unexpected sound of noises seeming to be coming from inside the home one night. They can see nothing, but the evidence seems clear enough: coins jangle and a nose sneezes. Nevertheless, there is no actual physical evidence of a burglar’s presence. Meanwhile, back at the inn, the Halls notice the quite unusual sight of the door to the stranger’s room left open. Further investigation reveals a bed which has not been slept in. They immediately contact the local blacksmith and have the locks changed with the intent of keeping Griffin out only to be surprised when Griffin suddenly emerges from the room which had been—with seemingly little room for doubt—vacated. Even more surprising: the stranger offers to pay his bill when Mrs. Hall presses even though just a few days earlier he had asserted he was not presently equipped to handle the debt.
That bill has remained unpaid, however, and Mrs. Hall uses the strongest leverage she has over him: refusing to bring him food as usual. The confrontation increasingly more tense as she uses this leverage to push him further, suggesting that he has alienated the entire village with his odd behavior and that it is time for him to finally spill the beans about just what the heck goes on here. The tension reaches a boiling point as the anger and frustration finally boil over and the man confesses that beneath his bandages, he is invisible. He then proves it, terrifying the witnesses and sending the entire community into a tizzy. The locals contact the constables and a plan—if such it can be described—is put into action: arrest the stranger. The stranger whom nobody can see because he is, well, invisible.
Not surprisingly, the man manages to avoid getting entrapped by this majestically complex plan of action. Even so, his escape is not entirely foolproof since in order to remain completely invisible, he cannot wear clothing. Nor, of course, can he carry books, money or protective weaponry. To facilitate his plans for escape, the Invisible Man engages the services of a tramp he has met named Marvel. Together they return to the inn to retrieve his belongings. There is a bit of a sticky wicket when he discovers the blacksmith and the vicar rifling through his private property, but this fooferall ends rather well with the Invisible Man making off with their clothing. His getaway is temporarily obstructed by a quick struggled with some of the villagers, but once he again the stranger somehow manages to escape the dragnet set up by the highly motivated but woefully prepared rubes of the town.
By this point, however, the stranger is facing a whole new ballgame as word of an invisible man has spread far beyond the small village. Marvel, grown terrified by the unpredictability of the stranger’s wild mood swings, attempts to escape. The Invisible Man, predictably angered up, cannot let this stand and sets in chase of Marvel. This almost proves to be his fatal undoing as he suffers a wound from a gunshot. Nevertheless, in what proves to be a recurring case of wile and guile over superior numbers and weaponry, the Invisible Man is once again on the loose, winding up in Port Burdock at the home of one Dr. Kemp. By a bizarre happenstance, it seems, the two men had once studied the sciences together. At this point, the Invisible Man finally reveals his true identity: Griffin, who had attended the same university as Kemp back when both were young science students.
Griffin tells Kemp the story of how he discovered the secrets unlocking invisibility and his life subsequent to possessing that unique ability. It is the tale of the inexorable path from normalcy to madness: thievery and robbery to continue funding his experiments, terrorizing strangers unable to see him, eschewing all food and drink except when necessary in order to avoid revealing the grotesquerie of his condition until, finally, the decision to use theatrical supplies to make himself at least partially presentable in public. Narcissism made lunatic by demonstrable power, Griffin then proceeds to shape and contour the context of this already remarkable tale by confessing to Kemp his plans for using this amazing power to continue terrorizing and ultimately ruling people. Griffin also makes the miscalculation of assuming that Kemp would just naturally want to join and assist him in his plan. Instead, his old college chum conveys a note to the police who arrive, but…well, you know.
Thus begins what is essentially a nationwide manhunt for the dread terror now popularly known only as the Invisible Man. Things are a little different this time around, however, as the police finally have a weapon that may actually prove useful where conventional firearms have not. Now there are two—not just one—man who knows the secrets to Griffin’s powers of invisibility. Kemp has a plan and this time around it is an actual plan that can be put into action and followed through with a strategic goal in mind. The police must ensure that all possible domiciles inside which Griffin could hide are locked beyond all attempt at entry. Also: no food must be available by intent or accident for twenty miles in any direction. The only hope they have is the simplest of plan of all: starve their prey out of hiding.
Upon learning of Kemp’s unexpected betrayal, Griffin blows his top, of course. Already barely able to contain himself from passing full time over the border into insanity, his emotional register is ready to top out and perhaps the one thing which remains predictable about his behavior soon manifests: he arrives back at Kemp’s home filled with murderous rage and homicidal intent.
Griffin shoots and kills an officer charged with trying to keep him from getting inside the house. Other policemen arrive on the scene and invisibility proves no proper defense against a well placed strike with a fireplace poker. Injured as he is, however, Griffin still almost manages to pull off his own plan, but just before he can kill Kemp, it is he who finally receives a fatal blow to the head.
In the final throes of life passing over into death, Griffin becomes once again just another of the countless herd of thoroughly visible men.
