Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea– Kaitlin

I’m not sure if anyone else is from History 106 and is reading Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, so I wanted to do something a little different with this post. I’m going to be doing a close reading of the first few chapters, looking at how scientific knowledge is portrayed in the novel and how this compares to both Frankenstein and Ganges’ chapters on Victorian science.

Jules Verne was French, and it’s interesting both to draw parallels and to see the differences between France at the time and Victorian Britain. This seems to be a very international novel in a way that I don’t think Frankenstein was. I’m curious what Invisible Man is like. Different characters represent different nations. There is also the threat of Captain Nemo’s personal vendetta against a certain nation. It seems to be Britain. I know future adaptations involving the character shape Captain Nemo as an Indian who despises the British Empire. I wonder though how Verne thought of the character originally. There was still a lot of military anxiety between the two nations in the mid 1800s. I found one reference to Britain humorous: “In light-hearted countries, people joked about the phenomenon, but such serious, practical countries as England, America, and Germany were deeply concerned” (11). I think this shows how the British stereotype about the French being frivolous goes both ways. This may also be a reference to the more practical engineering feats of these countries.

There are obviously a lot of parallels we can draw from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea to Frankenstein and Moby Dick. Captain Nemo is easily a Victor Frankenstein or Captain Ahab. There is the struggle between personal motivation and scientific motivation—although this relates more to Victor Frankenstein than Captain Ahab. Verne mentions Moby Dick in the very beginning, forcing the reader to draw this parallel. There is a concern in both Frankenstein and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea about whether technological power corrupts an individual’s humanity.

A major difference between Frankenstein and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea is that Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea luxuriates in scientific detail while Shelley often leaves readers wanting to know more about the technology behind the miraculous reanimation. Perhaps Shelley’s focus was more the morality behind the scientific advance. Verne seems to enjoy the science, and perhaps this is evidence of how the science fiction genre was beginning to take shape. From what I understand, Verne spent copious amounts of time researching the contemporary science and technology necessary for the major plot points of this and other novels. Submarines did exist at the time, but Verne imagines some of the capabilities they would have far in the future, particularly where Captain Nemo describes to Professor Pierre Arronax the use of electricity on the vessel, much to Arronax’s trepidation. There are other examples where Verne takes a preexisting technology and embellishes it. Diving suits existed at the time, but characters in the novel seem far more mobile than they would have been in reality while hunting sharks.

As Ganges writes about Victorian science, there was an increasing separation between different fields of knowledge as those fields became more specialized and advanced. We can see this in our first introduction to Professor Pierre Arronax. He has a very specialized field. He is an assistant professor at the Paris Museum of Natural History. Although he seems to take an interest in multiple areas, his specialty is deep sea marine life. As the novel begins, there have been several shipwrecks. Public opinion speculates wildly about whether or not the cause is a giant whale or other creature. This is why journalists hound Professor Arronax for his opinion about the possibility. I don’t know how much of this is a French trait rather than a historical one, but there was a time in Victorian Britain when theologians would have been asked to give their opinion on the issue. It was not uncommon for theologians to study natural history as this seemed to be a logical extension of their religious studies. Perhaps this was not the case in a country that historically has had a different relationship to organized religion, but I wonder if it is not more to do with how the various fields of science were changing.

I find the very first sentence of the novel interesting: “The Year 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has forgotten”. I can’t help but wonder about the significance of the year. The American civil war had just ended. The Second Empire of Napoleon III was in control of France—I wonder if this last part has an impact on the military concerns of the novel. In Britain, there was a financial crisis and London cholera outbreak. The turmoil of the time lends itself to some of the larger themes of the novel. There are also important scientific developments to think of. The Royal Aeronautical Society was formed. This again shows the specialization of knowledge. There were new discoveries in paleontology—particularly that theropods walked on hind legs. Arronax mentions that he has recently returned from Nebraska, and I interpret that as a reference to paleontological digs. The area even in Verne’s time would have been associated with that field. Gregor Mendel published his theory of inheritance in 1866. Mendel is mentioned in the novel, showing that Verne was aware of the scientific developments of the time. It’s also evident in this first sentence that the “inexplicable” creates fear in the public, and that the average person now turns to scientific experts for explanations.

There is evidence of anxiety around the secrecy and potential power of technology: “Only some government could own such an engine of destruction, and in these disaster filled times, when men tax their ingenuity to build increasingly powerful aggressive weapons, it was possible that, unknown to the rest of the world, some nation could have been testing such a fearsome machine” (18). The 1800s were a tumultuous century for Europe. It’s interesting to think that Verne may have been reflecting a genuine concern of the time about how technology could decimate people. There is also the worry over the secrecy of such developments. Britain had a superior navy historically, and I wonder if Verne is just verbalizing a concern that French citizens may have genuinely had—although the nation is not specifically named, and no one would have expected submarines to be so advanced.

There is a lot more to examine in the novel concerning these themes, but Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea is a fascinating follow up to Frankenstein.