Life Lesson from H.G. Wells’ “Invisible Man”
In H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, the protagonist Griffin, after a successful science experiment, turns himself invisible. The novel shares the theme of invisibility with Plato’s tale of the Ring of Gyges in The Republic: Plato argues that if anyone possessed the Ring of Gyges (a ring that would make one invisible), he or she would use that invisibility to gain personal advantage at any cost.
At first, the idea of being invisible sounds as great as Plato feared: stealing would be easy (money, food, but maybe not cars); you could enter any place you like without paying (Lambeau field, Bob Dylan concerts), or any area typically off limits (female locker rooms, military bases). Revenge would still be as sweet but with the added benefit of going undetected. One could injure or murder with no fear of ending up behind bars. Basically, being invisible would be awesome. You could do whatever the hell you please.
Griffin gives in to many of the same temptations. He robs. He injures. He kills. With no one to witness the crimes, Griffin must be living the good life, right? We expect to read a tale similar to the tale of Gyges, about a character who walks through markets and takes whatever he likes, or walks into any house and heads straight to the bedroom, or indiscriminately (or discriminately) goes around murdering. But even though Griffin is guilty of his share of crimes, his goal is not to indulge in hedonism. His goal is just the opposite: he wants to stop being invisible.
The plot centers around his desperate search for a scientific cure to return him to normal. But why? Why would being invisible be so problematic especially if it offers the fulfillment of what I dare confess are universal fantasies?
For starters, it is hard to be invisible. You need shoes, for example, even more than you need pants. (Recall the last time you saw a streaker interrupt a sports game. I bet the streaker was in sneakers?) Without shoes, an invisible man is at a serious disadvantage, for his feet are easily cut on rocks or glass. Without clothing, he shivers hopelessly in the cold, and when in public, he is unable to navigate through a crowd.
Being invisible, then, works against Griffin. It is a curse and ultimately leads to his death. As Griffin is captured (spoiler alert) and beaten to a pulp, he begs for mercy. But the mob will not stop its attack on an invisible horror. Indeed, is it not the things we cannot see which disturb us the most — the noise in the night, the virus shrugged off by the doctor, the damn future?
The mob bashes Griffin to a bloody pulp. His wincing and whining does nothing to stop the mob. He is nothing but a noise in their head, a phobia manifested as a screeching, writhing blob, horrifying them which leads to an even more brutal thrashing. Were Griffin visible the mob may have stopped. If the attackers could have seen his eyes roll back, the hands around his throat would have loosened their grip. If they could have seen the torn flesh, the black bruises, the protruding bones, they would have halted their punches and kicks. Put simply, being visible would have saved Griffin’s life.
And if we care to apply the lessons of great literature to our own lives — and of course we should — we can contemplate what it means to be invisible, for example, in our personal lives and careers. What gives us more power in our career, to be invisible or visible? The answer is obvious: we are more powerful when we are visible. So if you want to rise to the top — then you should give more presentations, sit near the higher ups at meetings, serve on high profile committees, make others aware of your achievements, befriend people throughout the company from administrative assistants to basement IT guys. Know this: if you’re the employee who comes in at 530am (when no one is there to ‘see’ you) and leaves at 830pm when no one ‘sees’ you, you are working hard, but perhaps not working smart?
It’s probably unpleasantly obvious that being visible applies to one’s personal life as well. Take parenting, for instance. You will have far more power (read ‘influence’ rather than ‘control’) over your children if you are there — visible — to them rather than invisible. Being ‘invisible’ of course means never being around, or never paying attention to them when you are around. So, if you want to improve your life and the life of your child, be visible — be at the ball games, be there at bed time, be there at dinner. Don’t be a Griffin. Griffin was invisible, bad enough. But even worse, Griffin was unable to make himself visible again. He was too late.
To sum up, being invisible forces you to be a loner — like Griffin, and being alone is always the worst option. Recent research on addiction, for example, has shown that addicts seek drugs due to isolation, or deep feelings of isolation, rather than because of chemical needs. In a study done on rats, for example, the results showed that a rat in isolation when given two options for drinking always selected the water laced with heroin rather than regular water. However, when rats are part of a community (adorably called ‘Rat Park’), frolicking around with other rats, mating, and engaging in the fullness of rat life — they completely ignore the heroin water and drink only the regular water. In other words, they are high on life. Alone in a cage, they are invisible; they are doomed. But in Rat Park, they are highly visible (pun intended).
The thesis of this little piece is simple: make yourself visible, for you will be invisible when you are dead.
For the video on the Rat Park test, go to:
