Captain Nemo

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This article is about the fictional character Captain Nemo. For other uses, see Captain Nemo (disambiguation).
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Captain Nemo
Jules Verne character
20000 Nemo South Pole flag.jpg
Captain Nemo bids the sun to go down over Antarctica, after claiming the South Pole in his name, in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
First appearance Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
Last appearance The Mysterious Island (1874)
Created by Jules Verne
Information
Aliases Captain Nemo
Gender Male
Title Captain
Children Deceased
Relatives Deceased
Nationality Stateless

Captain Nemo, also known as Prince Dakkar, is a character featured in Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1874).

Nemo, one of the most famous antiheroes in fiction, is a mysterious figure. The son of an Indian Raja, he is a scientific genius who roams the depths of the sea in his submarine, the Nautilus, which was built on a deserted island. Nemo tries to project a stern, controlled confidence, but he is driven by a thirst for vengeance and a hatred of imperialism (particularly the British Empire) and wracked by remorse over the deaths of his crew members and even by the deaths of enemy sailors.

Contents

[edit] Etymology

Nemo is Latin for "no one", and also (as νέμω) Greek for "I give what is due" (see Nemesis).

Nemo is, moreover, the Latin rendering of Ancient Greek Outis ("Nobody"), the pseudonym Odysseus employed to outwit the Cyclops Polyphemus.

[edit] Life

Orchha Palace, home to the real-life Rajas of Bundelkhand
Captain Nemo's death in The Mysterious Island

Nothing concerning his past is revealed in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, except his having reason to hate the countries of the world, the apparent loss of his family at some point in the past.

In The Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo reveals himself to be Prince Dakkar, son of the Hindu Raja of the Kingdom of Bundelkund in India, and also a descendant of the Muslim Sultan Fateh Ali Tipu of the Kingdom of Mysore in India. The latter famously fought a series of wars with the British.

He was deeply antagonistic to the British Empire, due to its conquest of India. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, in which he lost his family and his kingdom, he devoted himself to scientific research and developed an advanced submarine, the Nautilus. He and a crew of his followers cruised the seas, battling injustice, especially imperialism. They derive bullion from various shipwrecks in the oceans, most notably the wrecks of the Spanish treasure fleet in Bay of Vigo, sunk during the Battle of Vigo Bay.

He claims to have no interest in the affairs of the world above, but occasionally intervenes to aid the oppressed, such as by giving salvaged treasure to Cretans who are revolting against their Turkish rulers and by saving (both physically and financially) a Ceylonese or Tamil pearl hunter who was the unfortunate victim of a diving accident, or by saving the castaways from drowning in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and covertly watching over the castaways in The Mysterious Island.

Like many Indian princes of the era, Nemo had a European or English education, as he states that he had spent his youth studying and touring Europe. In his first meeting with Professor Aronnax and his companions, they speak to him in French, English, Latin and German; Nemo later reveals that he is fluent in all of them.

Aronnax goes on to comment that Nemo's French was perfect and unaccented and relies on his intuition and knowledge of ethnology to assess that he was from southern latitudes. However, he was unable to determine the country of his origin. The Nautilus's library and art collection reveal him to be familiar with European culture and arts. Further, he was an accomplished player of the organ.

He is said to have died of old age, on board the Nautilus, at Dakkar Grotto on Lincoln Island in the South Pacific. The last rites were administered by Cyrus Smith, one of the castaways on the island who had been saved by Nemo himself, and the vessel was then submerged in the waters of the grotto.

[edit] Character

Captain Nemo playing the organ, at which he was a master.

The best account of Nemo's character may come from the observations of Professor Pierre Aronnax, the narrator of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, who embarks upon the voyage with Nemo when the latter is about forty years of age. He is described as a reticent man throughout the account; tall and swarthy in appearance, with a straight nose and wide-set eyes, an attribute which gives him exceptional range of vision. In the later account given in The Mysterious Island, the aged Captain Nemo is said to sport a long white beard.

He eschews dry land, having forsworn all ties with it; and when he does step on it, he does so only when the land is uninhabited, such as Antarctica and desert islands such as Lincoln Island of The Mysterious Island. He is enamored by the sea and holds that true freedom exists only beneath the waves. In keeping with his detestation for the nations of the surface, he uses no products that are not marine in nature, be it food, clothing, furnishing, or even tobacco.

Little is revealed about his political opinions except his almost maniacal hatred of oppression, with which he identifies all the imperialistic nations of the world. He does not hesitate to identify himself with those oppressed, be they Cretans rising against the Turks, poor Ceylonese pearl divers eking out a living, or even black whales being attacked by cachalots (sperm whales).

When Professor Aronnax alleges that Nemo violates maritime and international law by sinking war-ships, Nemo responds that he is merely defending himself from his attackers, and that the laws of the world on the surface do not apply to him any longer. In one scene, Nemo exclaims:

"On the surface, they can still exercise their iniquitous laws, fight, devour each other, and indulge in all their earthly horrors. But thirty feet below the (sea's) surface, their power ceases, their influence fades, and their dominion vanishes. Ah, monsieur, to live in the bosom of the sea! .... There I recognize no master! There I am free!"[1]

Captain Nemo standing over the crew of the Nautilus as they observe an underwater funeral

Nemo is devoted to his crew and grieves deeply when one of them happens to be killed, as is portrayed in the aftermath of the giant-squid attack in the Bahamas and the mysterious midnight encounter with a surface ship. He shows the same compassion in his treatment of the castaways in The Mysterious Island. He also appears to retain loving memories of his family, for Professor Aronnax witnesses him weeping over the portrait of a young lady and two children, apparently his family.

Though short-tempered, he maintains great control over himself, rarely giving vent to his anger. He is also a man of immense courage, in the forefront of every activity, from releasing the Nautilus from the Antarctic ice to fighting off squids in the Bahamas. He was also a man of superhuman stamina, being able to work consecutive eight-hour shifts without a break, with little oxygen, to free the Nautilus from the ice. He was also an intrepid explorer, having discovered Atlantis, according to Jules Verne, a glimpse of which is had by Professor Aronnax.

An extraordinary engineer, Nemo designed and built the Nautilus, besides inventing most of her outstanding features, such as her electric propulsion and navigation systems. He has an exceptional mastery of underwater navigation, taking upon himself the most difficult submarine passages, such as those under the Isthmus of Suez and the Antarctic ice sheet.

The Grand Salon of the Nautilus

He has an immense knowledge of marine biology, and it is his respect for Professor Aronnax's expertise in the field which led to his befriending the professor when the latter was cast upon the Nautilus. Further, he is said to have read and annotated all the tomes he possessed in the Nautilus's vast library. In addition to these indubitable indications of an exceptional intellect, he repeatedly demonstrates his ability to create innovative solutions.

He has very fine taste in art, possessing several masterpieces of both painting and sculpture, from ancient and modern European masters, all of which are housed in the Grand Salon of the Nautilus, along with his inestimably valuable collection of pearls, corals and such other marine products, which he had gathered with his own hands. In the opinion of Professor Aronnax, the collection of the Grand Salon far outstripped that of the Louvre. However, Nemo regarded them as little more than the remainder of a past life, a life he chose to forget, but yet retain some memories of, for according to him, these were but a part of his original collection.

Despite the opulence that is visible all through the Nautilus, he is a man of spartan habits, retaining for his own use the barest minimum. In Professor Aronnax's opinion, Nemo's cabin resembled a monk's cell, furnished with little besides a bed and the navigational instruments integral to the Nautilus.

Nemo tells Professor Aronnax that his intention was to have the story of his life, which he was in the process of writing when Aronnax and his companions were cast upon the Nautilus, sealed in an unsinkable casket and thrown overboard by the last survivor of the Nautilus's crew, in the hope that it would be washed up somewhere.

An unsinkable casket does wash up in The Mysterious Island, the book that includes the details of Nemo's life. The casket contains tools, guns, scientific instruments, an atlas, books, blank paper, and even clothing. The crate is lashed to empty barrels, and the contents sealed in a waterproof zinc envelope, showing careful preparation and packing. This is one example of how Nemo grants the castaway's wishes, acting as an agent of Divine Providence.

One of the castaways, the sailor Pencroft, laments that whoever packed the crate did not include tobacco, the one thing he misses from his former life. A hunting party comes across a strange plant that the young naturalist Harbert identifies as tobacco. The other castaways keep the discovery secret until they can dry and cure the leaves. One evening, Pencroft is offered some coffee by his friends. When he declines, they say, "A pipe, then?" and produce a homemade pipe stuffed full, with a coal to light it. Pencroft exclaims, "O, divine Providence; sacred Author of all things! ... I have nothing more to wish for on this island...Now I am yours, in this life and the next!" [2] This cry is very similar to what Faust says to Mephistopheles, by which the devil claims Faust's soul. By making Nemo the granter of wishes and the invisible hand, Verne may be giving him some of the character of Mephistopheles, the devil himself.

Finally, Nemo appears to have some sort of hatred, fear or remorse that is never revealed to the reader, for the last words heard from him by Professor Aronnax, before abandoning the Nautilus, are "Almighty God, enough! Enough!"

[edit] Emblem

His emblem, as given in a description of the flag he raised when claiming Antarctica, is a large golden N on a black field. The motto of the Nautilus was Mobilis in mobili, which may be roughly translated from Latin as, "moving amidst mobility", "moving within the moving element", or "changing in the changes".

The motto of the Nautilus

[edit] Origin

In the initial draft of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Nemo was a Polish noble, a member of the szlachta, vengeful because of the murder of his family during the Russian repression of the Polish insurrection of 1863-1864. Verne's editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel feared a book ban in the Russian market and offending a French ally, the Russian Empire. He made Verne obscure Nemo's motivation in the first book.[3][4] In the second book of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Nemo comes close to revealing his Indian ancestry, though this is not obvious except in retrospect, in a scene where he saves a Ceylonese fisherman while on a pearl-diving expedition in the Gulf of Mannar.

[edit] Chronological inconsistency

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was written between 1869 and 1870 and records the voyages of the Nautilus between 1866 and 1868. The Mysterious Island was written in 1874 but is set immediately after the American Civil War, from 1865 to 1867. This would mean that Captain Nemo who appeared in The Mysterious Island dies before Captain Nemo who appeared in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea sets out on the undersea travels. Also, when Captain Nemo is finally seen in The Mysterious Island, he mentions having met Aronnax 16 years previously.

Many errors in the original French first printing (the 'grand in-8' published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel) are likely the fault of the editors who, at that period of time, were unlikely to consult the authors of the books they edited before making a change. According to the new, full translation put out by the Naval Institute Press, nearly all errors can be attributed to the editors, with only a few being the fault of Jules Verne, who was meticulous in his presentation of science within science fiction. The inconsistency of the dates between Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island is perhaps another, as it seems unlikely that Verne would make such an obvious gaffe.

The Nautilus goes down in the Maelstrom on June 2, 1868, according to 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, but may have survived. (The Mysterious Island gives this date as June 22, 1867.) Captain Nemo dies on the Nautilus under Lincoln Island in The Mysterious Island on October 15, 1868. So while the date of his death in the latter novel does not precede his adventures in the former novel, some chronological inconsistencies still exist: Cyrus and Gideon knew of Captain Nemo years before Aronnax published his story; Nemo being trapped under Lincoln Island all during the time in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

[edit] Portrayals

[edit] Captain Nemo in popular culture

Besides his original appearance in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo also appears in numerous other works, though none written by Jules Verne, and all works were created decades after the original books:

[edit] Images

  • Captain Nemo and Professor Aronnax discussing the plans of the Nautilus

  • Captain Nemo's room aboard the Nautilus

  • The library of the Nautilus

  • Engine room of the Nautilus

  • The encounter with the Cretan diver

  • The commencement of the attack of the squids at the Bahamas

  • Captain Nemo fighting a giant squid aboard the Nautilus

  • The silhouette of the Nautilus in the distance

  • The Nautilus in Dakkar Grotto, as pictured in The Mysterious Island

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jules Verne (1870). 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Pierre-Jules Hetzel. p. Part 1, Chapter 10 "The Man of the Seas". 
  2. ^ The Mysterious Island Chapter X.
  3. ^ Mike Perschon. Finding Nemo: Verne’s Antihero as Original Steampunk. Verniana: Jules Verne Studies. February 1, 2010. pp. 181-182.
  4. ^ Jess Nevins.The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana. Monkeybrain Books. 2005. p. 128.

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