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From Plato to Pullman—the circle of invisibility and parallel worlds: Fortunatus, Mercury, and the Wishing-Hat, Part II
Folklore, Dec, 2006 by Michael Haldane
A further point of interest is the relationship between invisibility and flight as suggested by the "flying money" (Wells 1913, 109)--a humorous description of the money stolen by the Invisible Man. What appears as flight is, in reality, a conveyance at the hands of an unseen power. However, the overwhelming impression of the nature of invisibility as described by Wells is one of limitations. Griffin is invisible only when naked, which is impractical in a Northern climate, and he catches more than one cold. Sneezing is one of the sounds that reveal his presence, and motion, either personal or climactic, raises the possibility of discovery. He can be traced by sound--the "pad, pad, pad of bare feet" when he burgles the Vicarage (Wells 1913, 40), by his footprints, and by a trail of blood following a wound. Dogs can scent him; falling snow and fog can reveal his outline; the food he has eaten is visible until it is digested; and the crowded, narrow streets of London pose a problem, for it is impossible to avoid human contact. Griffin's freedom is further curtailed when it is evident that he requires an accomplice to help him regain his books; Thomas Marvel has to open doors for him so that suspicion will not be aroused. These are the limitations of naked invisibility, of the naked self: as Kemp remarks, Griffin "is pure selfishness. He thinks of nothing but his own advantage, his own safety" (Wells 1913, 209). The Invisible Man is an empty tear in a glove, a soft felt hat covering a face and hiding Nothing. Invisibility cuts the individual from society, engenders too strong a sense of self, and reveals the weakness and corruptibility of human nature. There is the suggestion that invisibility is the preserve of divinity. It is a sobering thought that modern science has confirmed the scepticism and fear of invisibility that is to be found in legend and myth: because transparent eyes would be unable to refract light, an invisible person would be blind. Unseen and unseeing, walking the earth as one dead in a nightmare of loneliness: such would be the curse of invisibility.
In the His Dark Materials Trilogy, Philip Pullmann espouses the doctrine of parallel universes, the ultimate rejection of absolutism. Lord Asriel uses Dust--which is Dark Matter, shadow particles, consciousness, emotion, knowledge, acquired understanding, the transmission of wisdom, and "dark intentions" (Pullman 1996, 393)--to construct a bridge in the air to another world. [5] This bridge is built in thin sky behind the Aurora Borealis, and it appears as "dry land in the sky" lit by the sun, as a gap torn by the sky (Pullman 1996, 393), as a road covered by mist when Lyra crossed (Pullman 1997, 24), and as a straightening of the Earth's curve down to the horizon (Pullman 1997, 120). It is created when Asriel harnesses the burst of energy from intercision (a kind of spiritual castration, the soul being severed from the body). He had seen a city in the lights and decided that, "If light can cross the barrier between the universes [...] if we can see that city, then we can build a bridge and cross" (Pullman 1996, 377). Humankind is following light, following its eyes, and denying time. There are many windows to many worlds, but they all have to be closed at the end, with one exception, to prevent the leakage of Dust. Furthermore, as the character John Parry remarks in the Amber Spyglass, "We can travel, if there are openings into other worlds, but we can only live in our own" (Pullman 2000, 363): the alternative is sickness and death. One is reminded that a bridge has two ends. Again, the limits of self are apparent, in the sense that matter is reduced to elementary particles, to its smallest manifestation of indivisibility: as Lord Asriel remarks of these particles, "there's nothing inside them but themselves" (Pullman 1996, 370). It is as if the concept of parallel universes is too vast for the mind to hold.
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