Book Anatomy · The Invisible Man
The Invisible Man: Prose style
17 lenses on prose style for The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. Count lenses are exact for our text. AI lenses are our reading and cite only quotes that passed a word for word check.
Jump to: H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 H7 H8 H9 H10 H11 H12 H13 H14 H15 H16 H17
H1. Readability score per chapter. Count
Flesch reading ease for the whole book is about 74 (higher is easier; 60 to 70 is plain English).
Reading ease per chapter, chapter by chapter
H2. Vocabulary range. Count
5,765 different words. On average 50 in every 100 words are new within a 500 word stretch. 2,864 words appear only once.
H3. Signature words: what this author uses far more than others. Count
invisible, marvel, hall, mariner, stranger. See the full lens on the book page.
H4. Adverb and adjective rates. Count
About 15.91 words ending in 'ly' and 13.46 likely adjectives per 1,000 words. (rough estimate from word lists)
'ly' words per 1,000, chapter by chapter
H5. Share of weak verbs such as "was" and "had". Count
'Was', 'were', 'had', 'is' and 'are' make up 3.0% of all words.
H6. Passive voice rate. Count
About 4.4% of sentences use a passive form such as 'was taken'. (rough estimate from word lists)
H7. Variety of sentence openings. Count
The five most common first words start 32% of sentences: i, he, the, and, but.
| First word | Sentences |
|---|---|
| i | 375 |
| he | 345 |
| the | 244 |
| and | 176 |
| but | 130 |
| it | 107 |
| then | 101 |
| hall | 98 |
| you | 71 |
| it’s | 68 |
H8. Rhythm: how much sentence length varies. Count
Sentence length varies by 0.79 of its mean on average (higher means a more varied rhythm).
Variation per chapter, chapter by chapter
H9. Similes and metaphors: how many, and of what kind. Both
62 likely similes ('like a', 'as ... as'): 1.27 per 1,000 words. (rough estimate from word lists)
Ch 1, para 8: He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, laid the rest of the …
Ch 1, para 21: She put on some more coal, unfolded the clothes-horse, and extended the traveller’s coat upon this. “And they goggles! Why, he looked more like a divin’ helmet than …
Ch 2, para 9: “Good afternoon,” said the stranger, regarding him—as Mr. Henfrey says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles—“like a lobster.”
Ch 2, para 39: And he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his grotesque guest. “Looks a bit like a disguise, don’t it? I’d like to see a man’s face …
Ch 3, para 9: The blind was down and the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a most singular thing, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and a face …
Ch 3, para 41: “This chap you’re speaking of, what my dog bit. Well—he’s black. Leastways, his legs are. I seed through the tear of his trousers and the tear of his …
Wells uses similes sparingly but effectively, comparing Griffin's mood to a seeing man in a blind city (ch21) and his invisibility to a curse isolating him. Metaphors dominate: invisibility as power, terror as reign, and the hunt as warfare. Few extended comparisons; mostly direct language.
Chapters: Ch 21, Ch 23, Ch 24, Ch 27
My mood, I say, was one of exaltation. I felt as a seeing man might do, with padded feet and noiseless clothes, in a city of the blind. (Ch 21, para 3)
But you begin now to realise,” said the Invisible Man, “the full disadvantage of my condition. (Ch 23, para 2)
The more I thought it over, Kemp, the more I realised what a helpless absurdity an Invisible Man was—in a cold and dirty climate and a crowded civilised city. (Ch 23, para 48)
H10. Senses used: sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Both
Share of sense words. sight 48%, sound 37%, touch 14%, taste 1%, smell 1%. (rough estimate from word lists)
| Sense | Words |
|---|---|
| sight | 345 |
| sound | 268 |
| touch | 99 |
| taste | 6 |
| smell | 4 |
Sight dominates as the central absence; sound carries action (footsteps, voices, cries). Touch proves Griffin's reality to Marvel. Smell and taste barely feature. The book's tension stems from what cannot be seen but can be heard and felt.
Chapters: Ch 1, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 7, Ch 9, Ch 16
Something—exactly like a finger and thumb it felt—nipped my nose. (Ch 4, para 27)
She then distinctly heard the pad, pad, pad of bare feet coming out of the adjoining dressing-room (Ch 5, para 2)
Half-way across the road a woman screamed as something pushed by her; a dog, kicked apparently, yelped and ran howling into Huxter’s yard, and with that the transit of the Invisible Man was accomplished. (Ch 7, para 71)
H11. Repetition, lists of three and other patterns. Both
87 lists of three in the pattern 'a, b and c': 1.78 per 1,000 words. (rough estimate from word lists)
Lists of three appear in Griffin's scientific explanation (ch19) and descriptions of his experiments. Repetition of 'invisible' and 'unseen' builds dread. The phrase 'Invisible Man' recurs as a motif. Patterns are functional rather than ornamental.
Chapters: Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 23, Ch 24
I found a general principle of pigments and refraction—a formula, a geometrical expression involving four dimensions. (Ch 19, para 23)
flesh, Kemp, hair, Kemp, nails and nerves, Kemp, in fact the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black pigment of hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue. (Ch 19, para 32)
H12. Old words that may trip modern readers. Count
Old forms that may trip a modern reader: whence, art, twas, connexion, ere.
| Word | Times |
|---|---|
| whence | 2 |
| art | 2 |
| twas | 1 |
| connexion | 1 |
| ere | 1 |
H13. Showing against telling, with examples. AI
Wells shows action directly through scenes (the dog bite, the furniture attack, the siege) rather than reporting it. He tells Griffin's backstory through dialogue in chapters 19 to 23, balancing shown violence with told motivation. The climax is fully dramatised.
Chapters: Ch 3, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 19, Ch 20, Ch 27
They saw the dog’s teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw the dog execute a flanking jump (Ch 3, para 5)
The bed-clothes gathered themselves together, leapt up suddenly into a sort of peak, and then jumped headlong over the bottom rail. (Ch 6, para 12)
Then he put his open palm over his face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity. (Ch 7, para 29)
H14. How much description comes before action. Both
Description is brief and woven into action. Chapter 1 opens with the stranger's arrival in motion; his bandages are noted as he moves. Wells avoids static scene-setting, preferring to reveal setting through character reaction and dialogue.
Chapters: Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 7
A fire,” he cried, “in the name of human charity! A room and a fire! (Ch 1, para 2)
It was the fact that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage (Ch 1, para 14)
Looks a bit like a disguise, don’t it? I’d like to see a man’s face if I had him stopping in my place (Ch 2, para 39)
H15. Filter words such as "saw", "felt", "heard". Count
Filter words ('saw', 'felt', 'heard' and so on): 6.5 per 1,000 words.
| Word | Times |
|---|---|
| saw | 84 |
| heard | 76 |
| thought | 50 |
| seemed | 46 |
| felt | 24 |
| noticed | 13 |
| realised | 10 |
| knew | 9 |
| watched | 4 |
| wondered | 2 |
H16. Shifts in tone. AI
Tone shifts from mystery (ch1 to 6) to horror (ch7 to 12) to science lecture (ch19 to 23) to tragedy (ch24 to 28). Early chapters have dry humour; later chapters grow darker. The final chapters balance Kemp's fear with grim inevitability.
Chapters: Ch 1, Ch 7, Ch 19, Ch 24, Ch 28
Good afternoon,” said the stranger, regarding him—as Mr. Henfrey says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles—“like a lobster. (Ch 2, para 9)
For the man who stood there shouting some incoherent explanation, was a solid gesticulating figure up to the coat-collar of him, and then—nothingness, no visible thing at all! (Ch 7, para 31)
I found a general principle of pigments and refraction—a formula, a geometrical expression involving four dimensions. (Ch 19, para 23)
H17. How the comedy works. AI
Comedy emerges from incongruity: a bandaged man demanding fire, Cuss pinched by an invisible hand, Marvel's terror as an unwilling accomplice. Humour fades as violence escalates. The tone is satirical about village gossip early on.
Chapters: Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 4, Ch 9, Ch 10, Ch 13
Good afternoon,” said the stranger, regarding him—as Mr. Henfrey says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles—“like a lobster. (Ch 2, para 9)
Just at that point, to illustrate his story, out came his arm. (Ch 4, para 18)
Something—exactly like a finger and thumb it felt—nipped my nose. (Ch 4, para 27)
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