The Invisible Man

The antihero is a literary device often used in contrast to the noble hero. While the traditional hero exemplifies humanity’s virtue, the antihero can present moral ambiguity. Griffin is the main character of the novel, but because he is willfully entangled with darkness, antiheroism better describes his character arc. He may nevertheless retain a sliver of the reader’s sympathy; He is an afflicted everyman who stumbles upon a great discovery, only to succumb to his base appetites. Griffin’s plight may provoke the reader to examine their own relationship to morality as they become invested in his journey, rooting for or against Griffin as he strays further from humanity.

Griffin’s antiheroism is radically informed by its historical context; While it is late Victorian literature, The Invisible Man invokes Romanticism’s celebration of individual genius and the Byronic hero. The Byronic hero (so named for the work of the Romantic poet, Lord Byron) is characteristically tempestuous; alienated; cynical; rebellious against the tyranny of God or society. Romantic ideals appear elsewhere in the novel: Kemp’s appeal to “the common conventions of humanity” echoes Jean Jacques Rousseau’s 1762 work Du contrat social (The Social Contract) which argues that the individual’s nature is fulfilled, and their freedom realized, only through surrender to the common will of society.