Chapter 26- The Invisible Man Summary Notes and Extra Questions

CHAPTER 26: Summary (The Wicksteed’s Murder)

 Griffin was filled with rage when he ran from Dr Kemp’s house. After that, his trace disappeared for hours. After two o’clock, it would have become difficult to escape using trains and the whole town was on high alert. In the evening, he must have read the proclamations, saw the doors locked and must have realised that the information he had given to Dr Kemp was being used against him. Before nightfall, the town was filled with terror as the news of Mr Wicksteed’s murder spread. The narrator was not sure about the events that had led to his brutal death, but everyone suspected that it was Griffin who had done it. Mr Wicksteed was last seen alive by a little girl. He was beaten by an iron rod. The evidence showed that the Invisible Man had been at work. He was being hunted and this made him furious. It was the Invisible Man versus the world. He was absolutely cut off from civilised society.

 Q1. What had happened to Wicksteed? What effect did it have on the people of Burdock?

 Ans. Mr Wicksteed was a harmless man of forty-five or forty-six hardly a man who one could have expected to get into any kind of trouble. But he was found brutally murdered. The incidents leading to his death were not clear. The author says that his murder was a mystery as no one had seen what had actually happened. However, everyone suspected that it was the Invisible Man who had carried out the killing. The narration takes an imaginative turn. The author says that probably Griffin was filled with rage and carried an iron rod. It is believed that the strange rod that appeared to be flying in the air had caught MrWicksteed’s attention and he might have gone after it when Griffin not wanting to be discovered attacked him and as a result, Mr Wicksteed had been killed. The murder caused a sensation and the whole of Burdock was immersed in a feeling of horror after this.

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