The Invisible Man: Chapter 20 Summary & Analysis

Doctor Kemp stares silently for a moment, then takes Griffin’s arm and tells him to sit down, because he must be tired. With a sudden burst of energy, Griffin resumes his story. He explains that he had left Chesilstowe College by that point and returned to London. He recalls his father’s funeral, and how he did not feel sympathy for his father. He believed that his father was “the victim of his own foolish sentimentality.” That same day, Griffin met a girl he had known many years before, with whom he had a brief conversation.

Back at home, Griffin decided to finally try out making something invisible. At first he used a small piece of fabric, and was astonished that he succeeded in turning it transparent. He then heard a cat mewing outside the window, and tried to make her invisible too. However, this experiment failed, as the cat’s claws and the pigments in her eyes remained visible. The cat made loud, anguished miaowing sounds, and Griffin’s neighbor knocked at the door, saying she could hear her cat inside. However, Griffin pretended not to know what she was talking about.

Time passed, and Griffin was not able to make the cats eyes or claws invisible, so it looked as if these parts of it were floating in midair. He got into bed but couldn’t sleep. The cat continued to miaow all night, and eventually Griffin got so frustrated that he opened a window and the cat left. Kemp is stunned, asking if this means that there is still an invisible cat wandering around. Griffin replies that the cat is probably dead. Griffin explains that by that point, working so hard for four years had made him too exhausted to feel anything. He was left totally “apathetic.”

Griffin swallowed some Strychnine and went to sleep. The next day, he awoke to his landlord, an old Jewish man, at his door accusing him of torturing the cat. Griffin yelled at him and pushed him away, slamming the door shut. Griffin was suddenly terrified that his landlord would discover his experiments, and realized that he did not have enough time or money to move house. He left the house, carrying three notebooks and his check book, and sent them to a Post Office in Great Portland Street where books and letters can be stored. On returning home, Griffin saw his landlord trying to sneak into his room.

When the landlord left, Griffin made his preparations and took the “drugs that decolourize blood,” which made him drowsy. His landlord knocked at his door with a notice of eviction; when he saw Griffin, his eyes widened in terror and he fled. Griffin went to the mirror and saw that his face was “like white stone.” That night, he suffered extreme agony, fainted, and threw up. At the same time, his body slowly turned glassy until only the very tips of his fingernails remained visible. He felt very weak, but managed to complete the final stage of the process that would render his body invisible.

Griffin slept, and was awoken by another knock at the door. He could hear the voice of his landlord accompanied by someone else. Just as Griffin went to open the door, someone began to try and break it down. Griffin was furious. He gathered together some old bits of paper and turned on the gas in order to start a fire, but could not find matches.

The landlord and his stepsons finally succeeded in breaking down the door, but to them, the room looked completely empty, as Griffin was now invisible. They opened the window to see if Griffin escaped that way, and Griffin felt euphoric to realize he had confounded them. They kept looking, but eventually gave up. Griffin realized that it was too risky to abandon the apartment as it was and, having succeeded in finding matches, set it on fire before leaving forever. As he left, his mind overflowed with all the things he could do now that he was invisible.