Summary+Pages+Clair

I'm glad you mention your particular disagree. My question is. . . then how do you apply what you just said back to Cantor's argument? 10/10

5 pages Book read: __The Invisible Man__ by H.G. Wells
 * The Invisible Man and the Invisible Hand Magazine article by Paul A. Cantor; American Scholar, Vol. 68, Summer 1999**


 * 1)** **summary of main arguments**

Paul Cantor starts off his articles by talking about how H.G. wells was never really embraced by the literary critics, and how he is so commonly misconceived as an antagonist of modernism, while he is actually, in Cantor’s opinion, the greatest prophet of modernism. Then Cantor starts his discussion of __The Invisible Man,__ and he intentionally gives a rather contradictory claim about what the metaphor that the Invisible Man, or Griffin, represents in the story. First, Cantor compares to Griffin to Victor Frankenstein, which I thought was an interesting comparison, but then he gives a completely economically and socially based explanations to describe what Griffin symbolizes. By equalizing Griffin’s literal invisible hand to the “invisible hand” in Smith’s theory about capitalism (or competitive market), Cantor makes it seem that Wells is denouncing capitalism in his novel (Griffin is the antagonist in the novel). Then Cantor talks about how this metaphor fails since Griffin is the only person in the novel with the invisible hand, but capitalism is supposed to be composed of many, many people (that is the point of capitalism). Cantor shifts his focus by Kemp’s role in the novel as a form of “heroic individualism.” And by this (telling the readers that the novel is both about socialism and individualism, two ideas often considered the opposite), Cantor claims that he has given a contradictory account of the book. However, Cantor believes that contradiction lies in Well’s thinking.

Griffin’s comparison to Victor Frankenstein – mad scientists
 * 2) something surprising or interesting learned**

Wells believed that the only rational economy is a command economy, one in which a board of experts scientifically plans, directs, and coordinates all economic activity from its central position, thereby keeping entrepreneurs from pursuing their individual interests. He hoped that the twentieth century would be the century of socialism, the era when humanity finally took responsibility for its destiny and planned centrally for its future. Also, the thought of “invisible hand” representing capitalism had never occurred to me. When I first read the novel, I thought it was mostly about the social aspect of the society, but it turns out that it actually concerns more of the economical aspect


 * 3) agree/disagree with the ideas and then apply this to a scene or example from the book (one not mentioned by the critic)**

Cantor said that the main use Griffin makes of his invisibility is to rob people of their cash. I disagree with this claim mainly because I think Griffin only robbed in means of survival when he could not attain his needs the normal way because of his invisibility. Later, Griffin tells Kemp, of his plan of “Reign of Terror” and how he wants to use his newly found power to terrorize the society. It is clear that by then, Griffin hates the society, and his main focus is to act on his hatred with the use of invisibility. He does not “rob people of their cash” just for the sake of robbing people of their cash. He does that to make a point.