Whatever he had once suffered at the hands of humanity, he had no right to mete out such punishment. Captain Nemo filled me with insurmountable horror. I reentered my stateroom, where Ned and Conseil were waiting silently. Where was it going? North or south? Where would the man flee after this horrible act of revenge? It left this place of devastation with prodigious speed, 100 feet beneath the waters. Inside the Nautilus all was gloom and silence. The panels closed over this frightful view, but the lights didn't go on in the lounge. You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today! Now, he's simply Nemo, No One, a maritime ball o' questionably-motivated violence-and nothing more.The embedded audio player requires a modern internet browser. There's no use digging into Nemo's past because by the time we meet him, his past has become sort of irrelevant. In the end, he's a man who's lost his country, his family, and his old identity. In order to be No One, Nemo has to be a kind of an everyman.Ĭonsidering his position outside-and maybe even "above"-mankind, it's not so surprising that Nemo makes proclamations like "I am the law, I am the justice!" (21.59). Like, if we were to learn that Nemo was actually from Cleveland, Ohio, where he's got a wife and two kids waiting for him to come home, he wouldn't seem so special after all. Nemo wouldn't hold water (hilarious, we know) if we knew some more real facts about Nemo's life. Come to think of it, he also shares some similarities with Aquaman, who, depending on whom you ask, may or may not be the son of Nemo.Īnyway, Aronnax is really pointing out that Nemo's more myth-more story, more gossip-than man. Although, he would become one in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. (22.37)Īronnax doesn't mean Nemo's a superhero. He was no longer a fellow human, but a marine being, a spirit of the seas. His character was accentuated and took on a superhuman dimension. Captain Nemo: Larger Than LifeĪfter Nemo destroys the mystery battleship near the end of the novel, Aronnax notes: It's safe to say that with this new knowledge, he's still not your average gent. We won't give away the whole story, but the Civil War question is settled, and it's revealed that Nemo's an Indian Prince. And this mystery is precisely what allows Nemo to become more than a man in 20,000 Leagues.īut if you're dying to know more, read Verne's The Mysterious Island. The fact is, no man (or woman)-us readers included-can get the truth out of him. Or if Nemo was actually an American Civil War veteran. In 20,000 Leagues, we never do learn where that warship at the end of the novel was from. Aronnax seems to think that Nemo buries the bodies under the sand so that they will be "out of the reach of sharks." But Captain Nemo wryly points out that it isn't just the sharks he's worried about in this cemetery, his dead men will be safe from both "sharks and men!" (1.24.76-7). He puts them to rest in a massive undersea cemetery. Nemo won't even surface to bury his dead crewmen. So I do not obey its rules, and I ask you never to invoke them in my presence again! (1.10.20) I am not what you call a civilized being! I have broken with society for reasons which I alone have the right to appreciate. He built his own special submarine just so he could be alone, away from society. Maybe the important thing about Nemo is his enigmatic nature.Īllow us to prove it to you. So we guess we'll have to wait 'till Nemo's tell-all comes out before we can get some darn answers around here, huh? Nah, don't give up on Verne (or us) too soon, dear Shmoopers. Is Captain Nemo still alive? Will the waves one day wash up the manuscript containing the entire story of his life? Will I finally discover his name? Will the nationality of the vessel sunk tell us Captain Nemo's own nationality? (2.23.5) We empathize deeply with Aronnax's incessant questions about Nemo's true identity, because the dude's utter out-there-ness has kept us up at night, too.Īt the end of the novel, when all is usually revealed, we are left only with Aronnax's remaining questions about his Captain: Clearly, Verne wants us to be curious about Nemo's past. So his middle name might as well be mystery. It alerts us readers to the fact that Nemo is larger than (fictionalized) life he's not just a character, he's a symbol (see our "Symbols, Imagery, Allegory" section for more information). Just like our boy Aronnax, Nemo's name packs a literary punch. Captain Nemo Captain Cellophane-Er, "No One"
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