Heist movies have many examples of criminals slipping into a crowd and becoming essentially invisible. Either there are too many similarly looking people to spot the ones the cops want or there are too many people period. Without an identifier of some kind, the criminals have gotten away without consequences, at least for the moment.
In H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, a gifted chemist works out his theory for making things invisible. Recklessly, he applies his experiment to his own body and becomes an inhuman and invisible man.
His glassy essence, like an angry ape
“Measure for Measure” Act 2, scene 2
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep.
When the invisible man tells his own story, you see his arrogance runs deep. He attempts to live without any social obligations, taking food or clothing for himself without payment, assuming these things would simply disappear like he has. He quickly learns it won’t work that way, because he isn’t an incorporeal ghost; he’s a naked man that no one can see. If he weren’t such a hot-tempered fool, he might have worked more methodically and converted a set of clothes into invisibility before converting himself.
After a few months of experimental living as an invisible man, the chemist wants to terrorize people. He wants to pursue his scientific interests without having to earn anyone’s favor or deal with normal social pressures. He probably blames his father, his old boss, and all of his research colleagues for his jaded view of the world, but I think Wells may intend these people to represent everyone. There are no contrasting noble characters in this story. Even the chemist’s closest friend may have been just as self-seeking as everyone else.
Wells provokes readers to ask what anyone would do if he or she could be invisible, or to put it another way, what would you do if there were no consequences to pay? Would you plagiarize? Steal someone’s research? Slander someone’s character to get rid of them?