Captain Nemo

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This article is about the fictional character Captain Nemo. For other uses, see Captain Nemo (disambiguation).
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
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

Captain Nemo is a fictional character featured in Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1874). "Nemo" is Latin for "no one".

Nemo, one of the most famous anti-heroes in fiction, is a mysterious figure. He is a scientific genius who roams the depths of the sea in his submarine, the Nautilus, which he built on a deserted island. Nemo tries to project a stern, controlled confidence, but he is driven by a thirst for vengeance, and wracked by remorse over the deaths of his crewmembers and even by the deaths of enemy sailors. In The Mysterious Island, a still mysterious but gentler Nemo secretly helps the castaways off the island and in the end warns them that the island will perish in a volcanic eruption. Nemo dies of a mysterious illness just before the eruption and is buried in his ship that is then sunk.

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[edit] Life

Captain Nemo's death in The Mysterious Island
Captain Nemo's death in The Mysterious Island

Nothing concerning his past is revealed in the Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, excepting his having reason to hate the countries of the world and his apparent loss of his family. It is in its sequel, The Mysterious Island, that Nemo declares himself Prince Dakkar, the Hindu son of the Rajah of Bundelkund. He was deeply antagonistic to the British Raj of India. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, in which he lost his family and his kingdom, he devoted himself to scientific research and develops an advanced submarine, the Nautilus. He and a crew of his followers cruise the seas, battling injustice, especially imperialism. The gold of Spanish ships sunk in Vigo Bay, as a result of the Battle of Vigo Bay, provided them with bullion.

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

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, the latter speak to him in French, English, Latin and German, all of which Nemo later reveals he is fluent in. 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, on board the Nautilus, at Dakkar Grotto on Lincoln Island in the South Pacific. The last rites were administered by Cyrus Harding, one of the castaways on the island who had been saved by the Captain himself, and the ship then submerged into the waters of the grotto.

[edit] Character

Captain Nemo playing the organ at which he was past master
Captain Nemo playing the organ at which he was past master

The best account of the Captain's character may be had from the observations of Professor Arronax, a character in, and narrator of, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, who is stated to have embarked upon that curious voyage with the captain when the latter was about forty years of age. He is described as a reticent man throughout the account; tall and swarthy in appearance, he had a high nose and eyes set on the far sides of his face, an attribute that gave him an 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, does so only when the land is uninhabited, such as with Antarctica and desert islands such as Lincoln Island, of The Mysterious Island. He, is quite enamoured 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 that he has an almost maniacal hatred of oppression, with which he identifies all the imperialistic nations of the world and does not hesitate to identify himself with those oppressed, be they Cretans rising against the Turks ruling them or poor Ceylonese pearl-divers eking out a living or even grey whales being attacked by cachalots. In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, when Professor Arronax insinuates that he was violating maritime and international law, by sinking war-ships, he states that he was merely defending himself from his attackers and that the laws of the world on the surface did not apply to him any longer.

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

He is devoted to his crew, and can barely contain his grief 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 also appears to retain loving memories of his family, for Professor Arronax witnesses him weeping over the portrait of a young lady and two children, apparently his family. He betrays the same compassion in his treatment of the castaways in The Mysterious Island.

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

An extraordinary engineer, he 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 under-sea navigation, taking upon himself the most difficult passages of the voyage described in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, such as those under the Isthmus of Suez and that under the Antarctic ice-sheet.

The Grand Salon of the Nautilus
The Grand Salon of the Nautilus

He had an immense knowledge of marine biology, and it was his respect for Professor Arronax's expertise in that field which led to his befriending the professor when the latter was cast upon the Nautilus by chance. 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 had very fine taste in art, possessing several masterpieces of both painting and sculpture, from ancient and modern European masters, all of which were housed in the Grand Salon of the Nautilus, along with his inestimably valuable collecion of pearls, corals and such other marine products, which he had gathered with his own hands. In the opinion of Professor Arronax, the collection of the Grand Salon far outstripped that of the Louvre. However, the Captain 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 Arronax's opinion, the Captain's cabin resembled a monk's cellar, furnished with little besides a bed and the navigation instruments so integral to the Nautilus.

The Captain tells Professor Arronax that his intention was to have the story of his life, which he was even then in the process of writing when the Professor and his companions were cast upon the Nautilus, would be 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.

He appears to have some sort of hatred, fear or remorse, never revealed to the reader, for the last words heard from him by Professor Arronax, before abandoning the Nautilus, were "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 rougly translated from Latin as, "moving amidst mobility"

The Motto of the Nautilus
The Motto of the Nautilus

[edit] Origin

In the initial draft of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Nemo was a Polish noble, 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.[citation needed] 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 1867 and 1868. The Mysterious Island was written in 1874 but plays immediately after the American Civil War, from 1865 to 1867. This would mean that the Captain Nemo appearing in The Mysterious Island dies before the Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea sets out on his undersea voyages. Also, when Captain Nemo is finally met in The Mysterious Island, he mentions having met Aronnax 16 years previously.

[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] References

[edit] External links

[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
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