Tag Archives: Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered

Character Analysis — Pierre Aronnax

Having analyzed Conseil and Ned Land in recent blogposts, I’ll turn my attention today to the narrator of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Pierre Aronnax.

First, don’t forget to submit your best short story to the upcoming anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered, my tribute to Verne’s undersea masterpiece on its sesquicentennial. I’m co-editing this book, along with editor and award-winning author Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing. We’ll officially close for submissions on April 30, but I encourage you to submit well before then. We accept stories as we go, and every previous anthology from this publisher has filled up before its closing date. See this site for guidelines and to submit your story.

Pierre Aronnax, forty years of age, was an Assistant Professor at the Paris Museum of Natural History. He’d written a definitive book on sea creatures, titled The Mysteries of the Great Ocean Depths. Aronnax had been visiting the Nebraska Badlands and was in New York when he received an invitation to join the crew of the frigate USS Abraham Lincoln on its mission to hunt down the reported ‘sea monster.’

Of the three men taken aboard the Nautilus, only Aronnax is given a tour and introduced to most of the wonders aboard. Captain Nemo treats him as an approximate equal, a gentleman, while he treats the rest of his crew, and both Conseil and Ned Land, as lower-class commoners. To our modern sensibilities, this sounds absurd, but to Verne’s class-conscious readers it must have seemed understandable, even natural.

Some have theorized Verne was playing with the word ‘arrogant’ in giving the Professor his surname, but I disagree. I don’t believe Verne thought of Aronnax as arrogant or intended him to appear that way to readers. The Professor was a Nineteenth Century gentleman-scholar and behaved that way. Though he may seem arrogant to us, it is unlikely Verne would have foreseen our modern sensibilities and named his character accordingly.

I’ve mentioned before that Conseil served as the imaginative voice of Verne. I think Aronnax and Nemo together represent what Verne aspired to be. Verne would have loved to be a scientific scholar like Aronnax and an engineer like Nemo.

That said, Aronnax is a disappointing character. He enjoys being free to examine undersea life from within a submarine, while ignoring that he’s trapped aboard. He admires the scientific and engineering genius of Nemo while choosing to ignore warning signs of the Captain’s insanity. Aronnax knows he must someday try to leave the submarine, but would prefer that date be well in the future. In short, he’s there to observe and to marvel for us, not to act in any daring way.

Modern writers can understand Verne’s dilemma. To pull off his undersea novel with all its various travels and adventures, Verne needed at least one character who was content to remain in an iron prison for the duration. Aronnax is that character, but he comes off as too trusting and too slow to act. He is carried along by events rather than causing things to happen. These aren’t traits we like to see in a main character.

In a way, we can think of Verne’s Aronnax as an unreliable narrator. The Professor gives us accurate information on the Nautilus, Nemo’s scientific and engineering prowess, and the many fish they see and places they visit. But he ignores and then rejects Ned Land’s opinion about Nemo and the Canadian’s plans for escape. Only in the end do we (and Aronnax) see that Ned was right all along.

I suppose you can guess the next 20,000 Leagues character to be analyzed by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 19, 2020Permalink

Character Analysis — Ned Land

Today we’ll consider the character Ned Land in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Before doing so, I’d like to remind you to submit a short story to Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered, an anthology I’m co-editing along with the creative and capable Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing. We’re open for submissions and accepting stories as we go, and this publisher’s previous anthologies have all filled up before their closing dates. Therefore, don’t wait until the official closing date of April 30. Submit your story here.

Turning now to Ned Land, Verne introduces him as a Canadian harpooner from Quebec assigned to the frigate USS Abraham Lincoln to assist the crew in hunting a menacing sea creature.

Verne has fun with this character’s name. In French editions, it is rendered as “Land,” the same as in English translations, not the French word for land, “terre.” Verne’s audience would have had to know the English word to get his pun. Ned is a man of the sea named for the land, who craves to escape from under the sea and eat food of the land.

Between Professor Aronnax and Ned Land, readers come to understand two opposing ways of dealing with their imprisonment aboard the Nautilus. The pair are opposites, with Aronnax’s servant Conseil serving as the median. On several spectra, the two men occupy extreme ends.

Ned Land is the ‘physical’ to Aronnax’s ‘intellectual.’ Land is often depicted as taking action, while Aronnax observes and deliberates. It is Ned who throws the harpoon, who assaults a steward, who goes ashore and shoots birds and kangaroos, who grabs the electrified railing, who kills a shark, who harpoons a dugong, and who joins in the attack on the giant squid, who tries to signal a nearby ship, and who arranges their escape from the Nautilus.

Further, Ned Land acts without thinking, while Aronnax thinks without acting. Often, Ned acts impulsively, sometimes with a bad result but sometimes heroically. Aronnax suffers from ‘paralysis by analysis,’ knowing what he should do, but not doing anything about it.

Land represents the common man in contrast to Aronnax, the upper-class gentleman. Aronnax eats with Nemo and bunks in a room next to the Captain’s. Ned bunks and eats with Conseil in the midships area reserved for the crew. Ned speaks plainly, occasionally joking, while Aronnax speaks like a professor throughout.

The last facet of their contrast is what I’d term the ‘man of nature’ vs. the civilized man. Ned’s comfort zone is the out-of-doors, in the wild, killing and preparing his own dinner. For his part, Aronnax would be lost without his servant and is more at home in drawing rooms and eating gourmet food. Here, most of Verne’s audience would identify closer with the professor, but nonetheless be fascinated by the harpooner.

Given their differing viewpoints, it’s no wonder Aronnax sees the Nautilus as a vessel of underwater exploration, while Land sees only a prison. Aronnax sees Captain Nemo as a rational engineer and scientist, while Land sees him as an insane pirate and jailer.

Although the two share the same goal, leaving the Nautilus, they differ on timeframe and method. Aronnax would like to leave someday, after persuading a captain he sees as reasonable. Land wants to get off the submarine immediately, by force if necessary.

Verne resolves this conflict in a draw. The trio departs the Nautilus far later than Ned would have liked, after spending seven months aboard. However, they must sneak off the ship without the Captain’s permission, during an emergency, and with Ned guiding.

Ned Land, then, is the perfect ‘friendly opposition’ to Pierre Aronnax, giving the novel dramatic tension throughout. Have you ever known someone like Ned Land (except for his harpooner occupation, of course)? A few like him have been known to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 12, 2020Permalink

Welcome Aboard the Nautilus

The submarine in Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is one of the most amazing settings in all of literature. Let’s explore it.   

Before we do, I’ll invite you to write and submit a short story to an anthology I’m co-editing along with the esteemed Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing. Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered is intended for release on June 20, 2020, the 150th anniversary of Verne’s masterwork. Click here for details about submitting your story.

As a degreed naval architect and former submariner, I could write many posts about the design of the Nautilus. You can read this book or this one, or peruse this website for more information like that. My purpose today is to explore this submarine as a literary setting.

Before the publication of Verne’s novel, submarines were tiny and dangerous; they could only stay submerged a short time. In the public’s mind they were curiosities, odd little experimental toys. Moreover, electricity was new—a phenomenon with known, but unrealized potential.

At a stroke, Verne astounded readers with a submarine like they’d never imagined. He gave them a glimpse through the veil of the future. The Nautilus was far bigger than any real submarine to date, nearly as big as the naval ironclad surface ships of the time. With a maximum speed of fifty knots, the Nautilus could outrace anything at sea. Moreover, it could dive into any deep-sea trench and only needed to surface once a day for air.

At a time when people lit their homes with whale oil, cooked with wood, and powered ships with coal, Verne sparked their imaginations by giving them an all-electric vessel. “Electricity” was then still almost magical, and Nemo had tamed it for lighting, cooking, and propelling his vessel.

Verne alarmed his readers with a horrible new weapon of war. No longer would the seas be safe when an unseen danger could rise from the depths and cleave ships in two. It’s how the book began, with mariners terrified of a ‘sea monster’ that struck without warning.

Yet the Nautilus had another side, as Pierre Aronnax learned. It was a civilized vessel, with a vast library and a relaxing parlor or salon with paintings, busts, and display cases. Yes, even a pipe organ. Large portals opened to provide a window to the sea, making this submarine a vessel of exploration, too.

But Verne’s surprises didn’t end there. For the sailors of the Nautilus, the sea wasn’t merely their workplace. It was home. Unlike all previous humans, they lived their lives in the ocean, never making land, eating only seafood, and being buried in the depths.

For Conseil, Pierre Aronnax, and especially Ned Land, the Nautilus was also an iron prison from which escape seemed impossible. Before the phrase ‘gilded cage’ came in vogue, Verne trapped his characters within one. The scenes played out between metal bulkheads with characters caught in an odd dichotomy. Freer than anyone else to explore the vast oceans, they could not pass beyond the Nautilus’ steel hull. Were they guests, or prisoners, or both?

The Nautilus was, and remains, unique. Some literary scholars consider it a character in its own right. I don’t go that far, but this submarine makes for a remarkable setting. Many novels since have been set aboard submarines, but we must measure all fictional subs against the standard of the Nautilus.

That concludes our tour. Watch your step on the ladder and don’t hit your head on the hatchway. Please exit quickly; if Captain Nemo found out I’d brought you aboard, I’m not sure what he’d do to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 8, 2019Permalink

What Makes 20,000 Leagues a Classic?

Literary scholars consider Jules Verne’s novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to be a classic. Why? Let’s dive deep into that subject.

First, as a reminder, I have teamed up with the talented writer and editor Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing with the intent of producing Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered, an anthology of stories paying tribute to Verne’s submarine novel. Our antho will open for submissions soon, as detailed here, and will launch on June 20, 2020, the sesquicentennial of 20,000 Leagues.

What makes a classic book, and why include 20,000 Leagues in that category? I like the definition put forward by Esther Lombardi in this post. She says a classic: (1) expresses artistic quality, (2) stands the test of time, (3) has universal appeal, (4) makes connections, and (5) is relevant to multiple generations.

Let’s find out if Verne’s work meets these standards.

Artistic Quality

This attribute concerns whether the book was well written by the standards of its time and whether it expresses life, truth, and beauty with artistic excellence. Although much of Verne’s prose seems stilted today, and the book’s over-long descriptions of the submarine and various fish tend to bore today’s readers, the artistic merit of the work certainly met the literary standards of its era. No mere adventure novel, it explored deep themes through its complex anti-hero, Captain Nemo. As the first fictional book to feature a submarine, written in a style imbued with scientific credibility, it stood out from all previous works.

Test of Time

A century and a half after its first publication, 20,000 Leagues is still widely read, with new editions appearing frequently. The novel inspired several films, comic books, video games, and a theme park ride. In 2018, Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre Company produced a play based on the novel. There’s a Wikipedia entry devoted entirely to adaptations of the work.

Universal Appeal

Everyone can relate to some aspect of the novel. We all admire the unshakable loyalty of Conseil for his master, understand the impulsive and restless Ned Land, sympathize with the dilemma forced on the scientist Pierre Aronnax, and marvel at the unfathomable engineer/pirate Captain Nemo. What reader could remain unmoved while riding along in a fantastic submarine, the Nautilus—part warship, part exploration vessel, and part private yacht—as it cruises from one undersea adventure to the next?

Connections

Verne’s novel contains plenty of allusions to prior works. Captain Nemo’s name (Latin for ‘nobody’) recalled the pseudonym Odysseus used as a ruse with the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey. In naming his submarine Nautilus, Verne paid tribute to the American inventor Robert Fulton, who gave that name to his submarine in 1800. The encounter with the giant squid was reminiscent of an octopus scene in Victor Hugo’s Toilers of the Sea. The maelstrom at the end of Verne’s novel honored A Descent into the Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe, a writer Verne admired. As already mentioned, this web of connections continued into a vast number of later works, all inspired by 20,000 Leagues.

Relevance

To be relevant, the work must resonate with multiple age groups throughout time. Young people can certainly connect with the adventurous aspects of 20,000 Leagues—the visit to Atlantis, the escape from the ice, the attack on the warship, and the battle with the squid. More mature readers can appreciate Aronnax’s internal struggle between staying aboard for scientific discovery and leaving to escape a madman, as well as the twisted genius of Nemo as he descends into insanity. Even in our age, when nuclear submarines prowl the seas, nothing compares to the Nautilus’ museum, library, and pipe organ. No modern submarine can travel both as deep and as fast as Nemo’s, and the oceans remain almost as mysterious to us as in Verne’s day. Thus, the Nautilus retains its singular fascination for us.

By this standard, 20,000 Leagues has earned its designation as a classic work of fiction. You can check with any literary scholar; you don’t have to take the word of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 7, 2019Permalink

Anthology Submission Call—Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered

On June 20, 1870, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was published, giving the world a new type of vessel, and a new type of pirate.

The novel’s original cover

150 years later, on June 20, 2020, Pole to Pole Publishing will launch Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered, a sesquicentennial tribute to Verne’s masterwork. The kind folks at Pole to Pole have asked me to co-edit this anthology along with Kelly A. Harmon, and I’m honored to do so. Here’s the submission call.

But we’ll need stories, people! What’s your take on this novel? What story can you write?

You’ve got a few months until we open the antho to receive submissions, but Pole to Pole accepts stories as they go, and they’ve always filled their previous anthologies before the closing deadline.

Watch this space for more news about this upcoming anthology. For now, all the details are here.

In the meantime, let your imagination voyage as freely as Captain Nemo did within the Nautilus. Write your story. Eagerly waiting to read your submissions, I’m the co-editor—

                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

September 22, 2019Permalink