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Part 1, Chapter 17
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Scientific Discovery and Technological Innovation
Freedom vs. Constraint
Human Intelligence and its Limits
Exploration, Imperialism, and Conquest
Nature vs. Civilization
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, November 18, Arronax notices that Nemo seems distracted. The sailors aboard the Nautilus are bringing in nets that had been left out overnight. Arronax notices that they come from a variety of different European countries. They haul in a spectacular array of fish. The light of the Nautilus attracts fish to the nets, making them easy to catch. Suddenly, Nemo comments on the nature of the ocean, which he frames as a kind of semi-divine organism. He fantasizes about a whole world of cities and communes deep in the sea.
One of the questions the novel raises is whether Nemo is justified in his beliefs about the ocean, or whether he is projecting his idea of an ideal world onto it. After all, there is nothing to say that cities and communes underwater would be any less brutal and terrible than life on land. Indeed, it seems that what is appealing to Nemo about the ocean is that no humans live there.
Themes
Literary Devices
Over the following days, the Nautilus continues moving southeast past the tropic of Cancer and the Sandwich Islands, where Captain Cook died. On December 9 or 10 the Nautilus is briefly slowed down due to being caught in an enormous shoal of mollusks, many of which are caught in the vessel’s nets. Shortly after, they pass a shipwreck. Arronax is horrified and saddened by the sight of it. As they pass it, Arronax reads its name: ‘Florida,’ Sunderland.
The novel has a somewhat contradictory relation to the legacy of colonial exploration. While Nemo claims to be vehemently opposed to colonial brutality and aligns himself with oppressed peoples, the book frequently mentions the names of colonizers, usually in a rather reverent manner.
Themes
