jules verne twenty thousand leagues under the sea

He has a deep hatred of the British conquest of India and following the Indian Mutiny of 1857 has devoted himself to scientific research and developing his submarine, Nautilus. In a later novel, The Mysterious Island, Nemo is revealed to be the Hindu son of an Indian rajah, Prince Dakkar. He obscured Nemo’s motivation, however, following Hetzel’s advice that he might offend Russia, a French ally, and lose the Russian market. Verne originally intended him to be a Polish nobleman, bent on vengeance for the murder of his family during the Russian repression of Poland’s uprising of 1863–64.

‘Nemo’ is Latin for ‘no-one’ – an indefinite name for an ambiguous character. The French title is plural – ‘seas’, not ‘sea’ – and twenty thousand leagues is, in fact, the distance that Professor Arronax travels with Captain Nemo. Thanks to an error in the English title, as shown here, Verne’s ‘twenty thousand leagues’ are commonly mistaken to be the depth to which the Nautilus dives. However, with the publication of modern, unedited translations, one can see the underlying pessimism of Verne’s vision. Hetzel, his publisher, persuaded him to modify his ideas in order to sell more novels and was correct about the effect on his success. His most famous works, collectively known as Les Voyages Extraordinaires, seem to promote the advance of science and technology, although Verne was doubtful about a technological future. So, without any resolution, they disappear, locking the doors behind them.In his writing Jules Verne attempted to ‘outline all the geographical, geological, physical and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science’. Eventually two men pay them a visit, but as they all try to explain their situation, the men do not appear to speak any of their languages. After a great deal of commotion, the three men are discovered and taken aboard the ship, where they are locked in a room. After several hours of swimming, they find Ned Land, who had also been thrown from the ship, sitting atop the creature itself, which appears to be not an animal, but a submarine watercraft made of impenetrable metal. Unable to keep up with the ship as it flees, they find themselves stranded in open water.

After finally stumbling upon the beast, Professor Aronnax is thrown from the ship and Conseil jumps in after him.

Professor Pierre Aronnax, his loyal servant Conseil, and a master harpooner, Ned Land all find themselves under the order of Commander Farragut as they travel the seas in search of the creature. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a science fiction novel by Jules Verne about three men who find themselves aboard the Navy frigate, Abraham Lincoln, hunting a sea monster that they believed to be a giant narwhal.

Jules verne twenty thousand leagues under the sea