The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.
The opening line of the novel effectively communicates important information to the reader: the period in which the story is set. It also sets the stage for drama: a phenomenon not yet explained and not yet forgotten. This dramatic implication also serves to establish setting since it allows the reader to gauge for themselves how much time might pass before a remarkable incident might be expected to have been forgotten.
"You see, my friend, it has to do with the monster—the famous narwhal. We are going to purge it from the seas. A glorious mission, but a dangerous one! We cannot tell where we may go; these animals can be very capricious. But we will go whether or no; we have got a captain who is pretty wide-awake."
The Nautilus—the submarine captained by Nemo—is causing fear and terror above the waves. Some believe that the conflicts between ships and submarine are the result of an unknown species of sea creature—a sea monster! Professor Arronax, however, is convinced that it is the work of a known species albeit one that the science of the times has woefully misidentified as a vicious creature: the narwhal.
"I am not what you call a civilised man! I have done with society entirely, for reasons which I alone have the right of appreciating. I do not, therefore, obey its laws, and I desire you never to allude to them before me again!"
Captain Nemo is a misanthrope. He flatly states that he has no use for society. He does not care much for the company of other men. This statement is expressed in the tenth chapter of a book with twenty-three chapters. Under most circumstances, the lingering question of why Nemo has absented himself from society entirely would become a psychological engine driving the narrative. Those expecting a solid unqualified answer as to exactly why Nemo has decided to plunge into a life spent 20,000 leagues under the surfaced of the ocean will be disappointed. It is just another mystery existing deep beneath the waves.
“The sea does not belong to despots. Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears. Ah! sir, live—live in the bosom of the waters! There only is independence! There I recognise no masters! There I am free!"
About the closest that the narrative gets to answering the lingering question of why when it comes to the personality quirk of Captain Nemo is this passage. The passage above is stimulated by a simple question posed to the skipper: “You like the sea, Captain?” From this prosaic query Nemo moves with astonishing rapidity from observing how much of the earth is covered by water to an evolutionary callback to all life on earth calling the sea home to the rather strange assertion about the ocean being free of tyrants. And yet, is not Nemo himself not a despot, albeit a rather benevolent one? Perhaps some psychological insight can be extricated from this seeming paradox.
“It is an elongated cylinder with conical ends. It is very like a cigar in shape, a shape already adopted in London in several constructions of the same sort. The length of this cylinder, from stem to stern, is exactly 232 feet, and its maximum breadth is twenty-six feet. It is not built quite like your long-voyage steamers, but its lines are sufficiently long, and its curves prolonged enough, to allow the water to slide off easily, and oppose no obstacle to its passage…The Nautilus is composed of two hulls, one inside, the other outside, joined by T-shaped irons, which render it very strong. Indeed, owing to this cellular arrangement it resists like a block, as if it were solid. Its sides cannot yield; it coheres spontaneously, and not by the closeness of its rivets; and its perfect union of the materials enables it to defy the roughest seas”
If a reader unfamiliar with the text ever wondered why illustrations and models of Captain Nemo’s rather uniquely styled submarine—the Nautilus—all bear a remarkably resemblance, here is the answer. Verne did not skimp on creating a portrait in words for his readers to use as a blueprint for imagining his most singularly lasting contribution to wide wonderful world of science fiction locomotion. The Nautilus is right up there with the Starship Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon in terms of treading off the conventional perspective of vehicular movement. It is a strange, otherworldly machine and that strangeness is directly attributable to Verne’s imagination.
