Electricity
As much as the novel is about adventure that sometimes test the limits of one’s suspension of disbelief, it is also a novel about the future. The reality of the future. Electricity, for instance, plays a major role in the novel, foreseeing a time beyond when such manufacture of power seemed almost divinely limited in scope. Captain Nemo puts the importance of electricity in proper context through an extended metaphor (hint: he’s talking about electricity.)
"There is a powerful agent, obedient, rapid, easy, which conforms to every use, and reigns supreme on board my vessel.”
The Casual Metaphor
Verne often engages metaphor in a kind of casual use in which the reference is direct but really acts more akin to a simile. This is a typical example:
"Captain Nemo and one of his companions (a sort of Hercules, who must have possessed great strength), Conseil and myself were soon enveloped in the dresses."
First Person Narrator
The first person narrator is prone to simile to describe people, places, scenarios and the plethora of strange creatures living leagues beneath the sea. Similes are often applied to Captain Nemo—so much so that the effect is to make Nemo appear something otherworldly or, at least, well apart from the average man:
“He seemed to me like a genie of the sea; and, as he walked before me, I could not help admiring his stature, which was outlined in black on the luminous horizon.”
Science as Simile
The power of the simile is comparison; by drawing an analogy between something of widespread recognition with something more difficult to compare, the reader can facilitate for himself what the author may otherwise have trouble doing. In the case of Verne, he occasionally turned to this great power to make sense of science for the reader not exactly scientifically inclined:
“The portion of the terrestrial globe which is covered by water is estimated at upwards of eighty millions of acres. This fluid mass comprises two billions two hundred and fifty millions of cubic miles, forming a spherical body of a diameter of sixty leagues, the weight of which would be three quintillions of tons. To comprehend the meaning of these figures, it is necessary to observe that a quintillion is to a billion as a billion is to unity; in other words, there are as many billions in a quintillion as there are units in a billion. This mass of fluid is equal to about the quantity of water which would be discharged by all the rivers of the earth in forty thousand years.”
Silly Similes
And then, of course, there are though occasions Verne turns to the power of the simile to manufacture humor. In this case, he manages to mix the humor with a little philosophy for good measure.
"There are only birds," said Conseil.
"But they are eatable," replied the harpooner.
"I do not agree with you, friend Ned, for I see only parrots there."
"Friend Conseil," said Ned, gravely, "the parrot is like pheasant to those who have nothing else."
