Identity Crisis In The Invisible Man

Khanna 1 Introduction

As the word suggests, ‘Identity Crisis’ is a situation of confusion in which a person’s sense of identity becomes insecure due to change in his or her expected dreams or role in the society. The lack of self-judgement and self-actualisation often leads to one’s identity crisis because of his or her failures or incapability to handle success or breaking social norms results into being unacceptable in the society. Our roles in the society and how well we are able to achieve them or adapt to them makes us acceptable in the society as well as recognizable in the society and disrupting such social norms leads to isolation from the society or the people living in that society, thus negatively affecting one’s psychological

Wells. The Invisible Man is a science fiction novella, where experiments reach to the stage of identity crisis and isolation from the society for the protagonist of the play, Griffin, who later came to be known as Invisible Man in the play because of his successful experiments of invisibilty.

‘Identity Crisis’ is not just a part of the play but it is actually the consequence of the success achieved by the protagonist of the play on performing his experiments successfully and his incapability to handle the output. The power of ‘Invisibilty’ achieved by him, made him consider himself superior from others living in the same society. This sense of superiority made him behave negatively towards others and considering them to be inferior from him. Eventually, made him carry out certain unacceptable actions in the

Khanna

“All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which, and only I, could answer.” (Chapter 1)

The feeling of dissatisfaction is clearly represented through the above dialogue of the protagonist. This is obviously an association from the time frame, when Griffin has not performed the experiments of invisibility and has not attained the taste of success. This dialogue gives us the glimpse of dissatisfaction Griffin had throughout his life in search of success and wealthy life, which is ultimately an addition to the cause of his weird behavior and extreme feeling of superiority. Eventually, led to his destruction even after achieving what he actually wanted to. Thus, accumulation of power in the hands of a person who eagerly worked for it, not always provides one with positive outcomes but is totally dependent on the capability of the person to handle it and make it acceptable in the society. The capability to handle achievements by a person is actually the basis of positive or negative outcomes towards