Footprints without Feet · Class 10 English · Footprints Without Feet: 60 flashcards

H. G. Wells — the episode is adapted from his novel 'The Invisible Man'.

The fresh muddy prints of a pair of bare feet on the steps of a house in central London — and then a fresh footmark appearing out of nowhere.

The muddy impressions grew fainter and fainter and at last disappeared altogether — the mud had worn off his feet.

Griffin — the scientist whose experiments had just succeeded in making a living body see-through.

By carrying out experiment after experiment and finally swallowing certain rare drugs, after which his body turned as clear as window glass.

Because he is unseen, not untouchable. He can still be gripped, struck and arrested, still feels the cold, still needs food, and still picks up mud — which is the cause of every disaster that follows.

That brilliant scientist though he was, he was a man with little respect for the law.

The landlord disliked him and tried to eject him from the house.

He set fire to the house.

To get away from the fire without being seen — invisibility works only on his own body, so clothes would have shown exactly where he was.

A homeless wanderer, without clothes, without money and quite invisible.

By accident: he trod in a patch of mud, after which every step he took printed itself behind him.

Because he had burned down his landlord's house in revenge, had to strip to escape unseen, and was left with no clothes, no money and nowhere to live.

Because giving the effect before the cause makes him a mystery and a nuisance before we learn that he is brilliant. Our first impression of him is a crime scene, not a laboratory.

The rules stay physical: drugs, a body, cold air and mud. Nothing supernatural happens, which is why the textbook can ask whether such a thing might scientifically be possible.

Whether the scientist uses, or misuses, his discovery.

The fire. He burns a house down to settle a quarrel with his landlord, before the story is properly under way.

The muddy prints appearing along a London street with nobody visible above them — footprints, and no feet.

It works only on his naked body: clothes, bandages and anything he carries remain visible, and mud, rain or dust will outline him. He is also still solid, cold and hungry.

'The Invisible Man' by H. G. Wells.

Because it was midwinter and the air was bitterly cold, and invisibility only works on a naked body. He could not do without clothes — and clothes made him visible.

For warmth, instead of walking about the streets.

He clothed and fed himself without regard to expense — breaking open boxes and wrappers for warm clothes, and taking food and drink from the restaurant kitchen and the grocery.

Warm clothes, and then shoes, an overcoat and a broad-brimmed hat — which made him a man fully dressed, and for that reason a man anybody could see.

Cold meat and coffee from the kitchen of the restaurant, followed by sweets and wine taken from the grocery store.

On a pile of quilts.

He overslept. He did not wake until the assistants were already arriving, and when he saw a couple of them approaching he panicked and ran.

Only by quickly taking off his newly found clothes — which left him invisible but naked again in the chill January air.

Because it was the centre of the theatre world, and he hoped the stock of a theatrical company would give him not only clothes but something to fill the gap where his head should be.

Bandages round his forehead, dark glasses, a a nose that was not his, thick bushy whiskers at the side and a big hat.

He callously attacked the shopkeeper from behind, and then took every coin he could lay hands on.

Because it was unnecessary — he could have undressed and slipped out unseen. He chose violence because it was quicker, and the narrator calls the act callous.

He took a train to the village of Iping, being eager to get away from crowded London, and booked two rooms at the local inn.

Arson at his landlord's house; theft of clothes, food and drink from a London store; and then assault and robbery at the theatrical shop. Each crime is committed to solve the problem left by the one before, and each is worse.

Clothes make him warm and visible; stripping makes him unseen and freezing. Every escape returns him to exactly where he started, only poorer and angrier.

Asking for help, explaining himself, or earning anything. Every problem in his life is solved by taking.

That he could clothe and feed himself without regard to expense — which is to say, without paying at all.

Because everything else about the night had worked. The whole disaster comes from one very ordinary human failure, which is part of the story's joke about an extraordinary man.

Because a coat with nothing above it is not a man. To pass in public he needs a face as well as a body, and only a theatrical shop could supply one.

Stolen money, a face made of stage properties, and a bad temper — plus a booking for two rooms at the inn.

A stranger at an inn in winter was unusual in any case, and one of such uncommon appearance — bandages, dark glasses, false nose and a large hat — set all tongues wagging.

That he wanted solitude, that he did not wish to be disturbed in his work, and that an accident had affected his face.

Because he avoids company, keeps his room locked, wears bandages and a false face and has an irritable temper; she settles on the idea of an eccentric scientist and excuses it all because he had paid her in advance.

Griffin had to admit he had no more ready cash, and pretended that a cheque was expected at any moment.

Very early one morning the clergyman and his wife were woken by noises, crept downstairs and caught the clink of coins being lifted out of the desk. The clergyman flung open the door with a poker and found the room apparently empty — yet the desk had been forced open and the housekeeping money had gone.

Under the desk, behind the curtains and up the chimney as well — and found no sign of anybody.

That it was an extraordinary affair — he repeated it for the rest of the day.

The door was wide open, though it was usually shut and locked and he was furious if anyone went in.

Nobody at all; bedclothes that were cold, showing he had been up for some time; and the clothes and bandages he always wore lying about the room.

Mrs Hall heard something sniff very close to her ear; the hat jumped off the bedpost and flung itself at her face; the bedroom chair sprang into the air and charged at her legs foremost; and the chair shoved the two of them out of the room and slammed and locked the door.

She was convinced the room was full of spirits, and that her guest had somehow got them into the furniture — she was especially upset because her mother used to sit in that chair.

That the trouble was caused by witchcraft.

News of the burglary at the clergyman's house — and the fact that he suddenly produced ready cash after admitting not long before that he had none.

What he had done to her chair upstairs, how he had come out of an empty room, and how he had entered a locked room.

He became furious, shouted that they did not understand who or what he was, and stripped away the bandages, the whiskers, the spectacles and finally his nose — leaving the horrified people in the bar staring at a headless man.

It took him only a minute.

He had to arrest a man with no head, which surprised him — but duty was duty. A warrant from a magistrate names the person to be taken, and taken that person must be, head or no head.

Griffin became disappearing a little further with every garment he shed; finally a shirt went up into the air and Jaffers was struggling with someone he could not see. People who tried to help were struck by blows out of empty air.

Jaffers was knocked unconscious in a last attempt to hold the unseen scientist; there were excited cries of 'Hold him!', but Griffin had twisted loose and nobody could tell where he was.

As a researcher he is brilliant — he achieved what nobody had achieved. As an experimenter he is reckless, since he used himself as the subject of an irreversible change without testing its conditions; and he does no further work at all, using the discovery only for theft, assault and escape.