Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne, is a 426-page adventure novel, available in the Fountain Valley High School library. In 1866, Europe and America are baffled by a mysterious creature that has been sinking ships with no trace of the ruins. Finally, the U.S. government decides to take a stand, and hires a ship, the Abraham Lincoln, along with Pierre Aronnax, his servant, Conseil, and Ned Land, the harpoon king, to capture and identify the creature. The three are attacked by the creature, are thrown overboard, and find themselves on top of the creature, which turns out to be a submarine known as the Nautilus. They meet Captain Nemo, the captain, and undergo many adventures on the submarine, such as a trip to the South Pole.

There are no physical descriptions of Aronnax, although there are many characteristic descriptions. He worked as the Assistant Principal at the Museum of Natural History, and is as the narrator and protagonist in the story. He is a very socially influential, intellectual man who has definitive, and on many occasions, excessive loyalty for France, his home country. Aronnax is an extremely arrogant person in nature. For example, his experience on the Nautilus is full of envy as well as insecurity. Also, he puts rationality before humanity many times in the story, and failed to see that Captain Nemo was an evil-natured man, through a veil of opportunity to study the undersea life. Captain Nemo holds both feelings of awe and fear in Dr. Aronnax's mind, as he repeatedly attempts to keep him in his ship, trying to get the men to believe that there is no escape. Although Aronnax, as a character, is believable and can exist normally in life, Captain Nemo cannot. Aronnax has many qualities of normal human beings, although most are not as arrogant as he is. From Pierre Aronnax, I learned to be more open-minded than I think I am, for his way of thinking, as a naturalist, greatly influences the way others think of him. As escape becomes more and more imminent, he learns to set aside his problem of trusting his senses instead of

This theme of the story is used in the conflict between Aronnax and Captain Nemo, as well as Nemo and himself. Aronnax, the “naturalist,” is faced with a choice between his own love of science and his fellow men on the ship. Nemo, who has gained incredible power and ability by defying nature, must regain his humanity. In this novel, the theme is more complex than in typical man vs. nature themed books, which usually includes people that battle the forces of nature. In this case man is trying to overcome nature, and man is trying to defy nature as well. Captain Nemo tries to create an alternate ego to change the one that he was born into, because it created events too hurtful to live with. However, in the Nautilus, Nemo is still affected by the forces of nature. He does whatever he can to create an atmosphere like that found on land, and must battle the creatures of the sea. Although he attempted to create a new environment for himself, Nemo cannot escape his human nature, which is the capacity to feel pain. It is this that drives Nemo to kill, and however, it is not