Footprints without Feet · Class 10 English · Footprints Without Feet: quick revision, 36 bites

Footprints on the Steps

The story starts with a puzzle, not a person.

Takeaway. The title is literal: footprints, and no feet above them.

A Footmark From Nowhere

Then it happens in front of them.

Takeaway. The trail ends because the mud wears off — not because the man does.

Griffin's Experiments

How do you make a body invisible?

Takeaway. Not magic. Drugs, a body, and a result he cannot reverse.

Unseen, Not Untouchable

Read the second half of that comparison.

He is **transparent**, but still **solid**: he can be **gripped, struck, tripped and arrested**.

Takeaway. Every disaster later in the story comes from this one fact.

Brilliant, and Lawless

The sentence the whole story rests on.

**Brilliant scientist though he was**, Griffin was **a man with little respect for the law**.

Takeaway. A set question asks you to comment on exactly this line.

The Landlord, and the Fire

The first thing we see him do.

Takeaway. Lawlessness, demonstrated before we have finished meeting him.

Clothes Give Him Away

Why undress to escape a fire?

Invisibility works on the **body that swallowed the drugs** — and on nothing else.

Takeaway. To be unseen he must be naked, and to be clothed he must be seen.

A Homeless Wanderer

Three losses, all self-inflicted.

Takeaway. 'Why was he wandering the streets?' — a set question, and this is the answer.

How He First Became Visible

One patch of mud.

One patch of **mud** on a London street, and every step he took **printed itself** behind him.

Takeaway. The other set question of this section — answer it in one sentence.

Effect First, Cause Second

Why tell it in this order?

Wells gives us the **footprints first** and the **science afterwards**.

Takeaway. Our first impression of him is a crime scene, not a laboratory.

Science Fiction, Not Magic

Nothing here is supernatural.

Takeaway. The rules stay physical, which is why the story can be argued about.

Answering on This Section

Two set questions live here.

Takeaway. Give the cause and the consequence together; that is where the marks are.

The Wrong Time of Year

The season decides everything.

Takeaway. Everything in this section is an attempt to have both at once.

Inside the London Store

A shopping spree with the doors locked.

Takeaway. Warm for the first time — and instantly identifiable.

Cold Meat, Wine and Quilts

Then supper.

Takeaway. An invisible man's first act of freedom is a very ordinary comfort.

If Only He Had Woken in Time

The story stops to say it.

Takeaway. An extraordinary man brought down by a very ordinary failure.

The Empty Space Above the Shoulders

A coat is not a man.

He needs not only clothes but **something to fill the head**.

Takeaway. Shivering with cold, he hurries to Drury Lane, the centre of the theatre world.

The Drury Lane Face

Five items — learn the list.

Takeaway. It works — and makes him the strangest-looking man in England.

The Attack on the Shopkeeper

He did not need to do this.

To get away unseen he **callously attacked the shopkeeper from behind**, and then **took every coin he could lay hands on**.

Takeaway. 'Callously' is the narrator's word, and it is the hardest one in the story.

Crimes That Escalate

Follow the line.

Takeaway. Each crime solves the problem left by the last one — and is worse than it.

The Train to Iping

Out of London.

Takeaway. A crowd hides a man; a village studies him.

The Loop He Cannot Leave

Why can he never settle?

**Clothes** solve the cold and **destroy the invisibility**. **Stripping** restores the invisibility and **brings back the cold**.

Takeaway. The power he worked years for has made him homeless in his own city.

The Option He Never Takes

Notice what he never tries.

Takeaway. The lawlessness is a habit of mind, not a series of emergencies.

Answering on This Section

What gets asked here.

Takeaway. Show the escalation: arson, theft, then assault and robbery.

The Stranger at the Inn

A village notices everything.

Takeaway. He has moved from a city that ignored him to a place that studies him.

Why Mrs Hall Finds Him Eccentric

Three sentences buy him weeks.

Takeaway. A respectable label and money in hand explain a great deal of odd behaviour.

“A Cheque Is Expected”

Then the money goes.

The **stolen money did not last long**, and Griffin had to admit he had **no more ready cash**.

Takeaway. Remember this admission. It is what convicts him a few days later.

Robbed by an Empty Room

The curious episode in the study.

Takeaway. “Extraordinary affair!” he keeps saying for the rest of the day.

Inside the Scientist's Room

An open door, for once.

Takeaway. Every clue is there. Nobody can read it.

The Furniture Attacks

Then the room fights back.

Takeaway. Inside: a man losing his temper. Outside: furniture in revolt.

Spirits, and Witchcraft

How the village explains it.

Takeaway. People explain what they cannot understand with the nearest idea they have.

Ordinary Suspicion

And then somebody does arithmetic.

Takeaway. Not superstition — just a man with money he could not have had.

“I'll Show You”

His worst decision.

Mrs Hall demands to know what he did to her **chair**, and how he left an **empty room** and entered a **locked** one.

Takeaway. Anger, not detection, is what finally exposes him.

Mr Jaffers Does His Duty

A constable with a problem.

He arrives to find he must **arrest a man without a head** — and is **not easily prevented**.

Takeaway. The funniest line in the story, and the bravest man in it.

The Fight, and the Escape

The last scene of the extract.

Takeaway. He is free, and he has nothing left — not even a face.

Answering on This Section

Three set questions live here.

Takeaway. For 'assess Griffin as a scientist', split ability from responsibility.