Underwater Exploration as an Exploration of the Self

Yes, Professor; and I love it as if it were part of myself. If danger threatens one of your vessels on the ocean, the first impression is the feeling of an abyss above and below. On the Nautilus men’s hearts never fail them.

This quotation, spoken by Captain Nemo in Part I, Chapter XII, “Some Figures,” shows how he identifies with the vessel he imagined, designed, built, and commands. Nemo is the Nautilus, and the Nautilus is him. In it, he and his crew are secure because of its impenetrable double hull. The vessel needs no sails, no boilers, no fire or wood. As it can dive, the vessel can elude any predator and escape any storm, for under the sea are tranquility and safety. These qualities are true for himself, too, or so Nemo believes. Nemo sees himself as an island, as a self-contained and self-sustainable submarine that needs nothing from the outside world. The rest of the world, like other vessels, is exposed, vulnerable, weak, and fearful. However, Nemo’s confidence is shaken when he strikes the warship, evidenced when he bursts into deep sobs at the end of Part II, Chapter XXI. 

‘Professor, is not this ocean gifted with real life? Is has its tempers and its gentle moods. Yesterday it slept as we did, and now it has woken after a quiet night. Look!’ he continued, ‘it wakes under the caresses of the sun. It is going to renew its diurnal existence.’

These words, spoken by Nemo in Part I, Chapter XVII, “Four Thousand Leagues Under the Pacific,” reveal that he considers the ocean as alive as a human. He identifies with it as he does with the Nautilus. Like Nemo, the sea has calm moods and bursts of anger, doldrums, and tempests. Later in the same speech, Nemo suggests that the ocean has a pulse, arteries, spasms, and circulation and that it provides the medium for other organisms to live in it. The ocean is life-giving and fecund, but it can also be deadly and, at its greatest depths, lifeless. To Nemo, the ocean takes the place of a companion, a lover, perhaps even a wife. It is the primary relationship in his days. Exploring the ocean, therefore, involves and necessitates him exploring himself.

May the contemplation of so many wonders extinguish for ever the spirit of vengeance! May the judge disappear, and the philosopher continue the peaceful exploration of the sea!

In Part II, Chapter XXIII, “Conclusion,” Aronnax’s thoughts clearly show the dual meaning of exploration that supports this theme. Aronnax hopes that Nemo’s extensive and repetitious ocean exploration can finally calm his heart and soul. He acknowledges that exploring the seas is akin to Nemo exploring his spirit. Nemo is terribly judgmental. He judges society, civilization, governments, laws, and other men. Nemo probably judges himself, too, although readers do not witness this directly. Aronnax wants the thoughtful version of Nemo to override the judgmental version because he knows that the latter is both self-destructive and dangerous to others.

Shunning Civilization and Political Resistance

Most annoying circumstances have brought you into the presence of a man who has broken all the ties of humanity. You have come to trouble my existence.

This quotation found in Part I, Chapter X, “The Man of the Seas,” is among the very first words Nemo speaks to Aronnax and his companions, Conseil and Land. Nemo has figured out the identities of the three captives and has made his decision about how to handle them, whether to kill them or keep them. He introduces himself with the fact that he has “broken all ties” with humanity and yet has decided to accept the men as part of his crew or, at least, as prisoners of war. Nemo suggests that his existence is relatively trouble-free but that their presence upsets the stasis of his vessel, his chosen community. It becomes clear, later, that Nemo had many ties with humanity in the past. He was wealthy beyond belief, he appears to have had a wife and children, and he has traveled all over the world. He has given it all up to be alone, but he cannot completely isolate himself despite his best efforts.

’I am not what you all a civilised man! I have done with society entirely, for reasons which I alone have the right of appreciating. I do not, therefore, obey its laws, and I desire you never allude to them before me again!’

In Part I, Chapter X, “The Man of the Seas,” Nemo speaks to Aronnax. Nemo has told Aronnax that he has every right to let them drown by sinking the vessel with them standing upon its platform. Aronnax replies that this might be the right of a savage but not of a civilized man, and the words quoted here form Nemo’s reply. Nemo claims not to obey society’s laws, a claim that he turns into action at the end of the novel. He also emphasizes that he is entitled to his privacy and need not divulge his reasons to anyone else. Nemo holds to that assertion, for he never offers much insight at all into his motivations. Aronnax recognizes a “flash of anger and disdain” when Nemo speaks these words. He thinks he sees a glimpse of a terrible past behind Nemo’s hostility. At this point in the novel, Aronnax admires that Nemo has created his own world, apart from society, even if it is motivated by dark emotions.

    ’Yes, Ned, he had business at his bankers.’
    ‘His bankers!’
    ‘Or rather his banking-house; by that I mean the ocean, where his riches are safer than in the chests of the State.’

This exchange between Aronnax and Land in Part II, Chapter IX, “A Vanished Continent,” happens on February 18, the morning after the night when Ned Land first planned to escape. When Aronnax witnessed Nemo’s crew pillaging the treasure from the ship sunk at Virgo Bay, he argued with Nemo about how he uses his fortune. Stopping at the site meant that the ship did not surface as planned, which ruined Land’s plans to flee. Land is disappointed, and Aronnax tries to use the incident to help convince Land that they should stick with Nemo a while longer because it might mean a share in the fortune. Land doesn’t buy it. This exchange and the incident it describes show that Nemo is not completely severed from humanity. There is still an exchange of gold and silver ingots, such as readers witness with the diver in Part II, Chapter VI. This fact makes Nemo a hypocrite, which Land recognizes immediately.

The Results of Hate and Revenge

Had I unwittingly provoked this fit of anger? Did this incomprehensible person imagine that I had discovered some forbidden secret? No; I was not the object of his hatred, for he was not looking at me; his eye was steadily fixed on the impenetrable point of the horizon.

Aronnax speaks these words about Nemo in the middle of the novel, in Part I, Chapter XXII, “Aegri Somnia.” Nemo has spotted something on the horizon with his telescope. When Aronnax, curious to know what has made Nemo seem so upset, takes his own telescope and looks in that direction, Nemo snatches it from his hands, his face distorted with anger, his fists clenched. Clearly, Nemo has seen something that has enraged him. He orders the captives to the cell below and drugs them to make them sleep. The next day, Nemo summons Aronnax to care for a crew member with a deadly head wound, and Nemo lies about its source. The Nautilus has likely drawn fire from an oncoming vessel, foreshadowing the fight at the end of the novel. Seeing the ship on the horizon triggered Nemo’s hatred. The direct result of this hatred and his need for revenge is the loss of a crew member, something that Nemo takes very seriously and feels great sorrow about. Nemo’s hatred causes collateral damage in this tragic scene, and it may take such a toll again.

It was no common misanthropy which had shut Captain Nemo and his companions within the Nautilus, but a hatred, either monstrous or sublime, which time could never weaken. Did this hatred still seek for vengeance? The future would soon teach me that.

In Part II, Chapter XXI, “A Hecatomb,” Aronnax muses these thoughts in response to Nemo’s recounting of the tragic end of the Marseillais, which was renamed the Avenger. Nemo takes delight in the wreck at the bottom of the sea and the story of how the captain preferred sinking with its crew members to surrendering to the enemy, another example of a hecatomb. It may be interesting to think about what a “common misanthropy” might be, but Nemo’s goes well beyond it, according to Aronnax. Nemo’s hatred is so monstrous that it might be called sublime, so pure and immovable that time cannot diminish it. The future that will answer the question “Did this hatred still seek for vengeance?” is not far off. Nemo still seeks revenge and takes it on the approaching warship and its crew.

One part of the mysterious existence of Captain Nemo had been unveiled; and, if his identity had not been recognised, at least, the nations united against him were no longer hunting a chimerical creature, but a man who had vowed a deadly hatred against them.

This epiphany happens to Aronnax toward the end of the novel, in Part II, Chapter XXI, “A Hecatomb.” He finally understands and admits that the night they were confined to their cell, the night that Nemo drugged them to sleep, the Nautilus had attacked the vessel on the horizon. The man buried in the coral cemetery was a victim of that aggression. Aronnax goes on to say that the past rose before him at this moment. He realizes that the people on the oncoming vessel would never see them as friends, only as enemies, for Nemo has pitted himself against them all. Immediately, shots begin to hit the water near the Nautilus, and Aronnax realizes that they are at battle at sea again, a battle caused solely by Nemo’s hatred. Nemo announces his intention to sink the oncoming ship, which he soon does.

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