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For the brief amount of time he appears in the story, the Old Swede serves as a superstitious foil to the narrator’s rationality. As the only other survivor of the Simoom, the Old Swede joins the narrator in attempting measures for survival however they can. When the ship plunges into unending darkness, the narrator refuses to entertain imaginative thoughts, but the Old Swede is immediately terrified, believing a supernatural or otherwise demonic explanation. Because of the magnitude of the strangeness of the situation, the Old Swede’s credulousness almost appears more rational than the narrator’s refusal to admit the possibility of the supernatural. The idea that the Old Swede actually has more wisdom than the narrator is borne out by him being the first to spot the ghost ship. His cry of, “See! See!” sounds like an epiphany or a discovery, but what he has actually discovered is something inexplicable, proof of their doom.

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