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Captain Nemo is a fictional character featured in Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1874). "Nemo" is Latin for "no-one". This name is aptly chosen. Nemo is a mysterious figure, about whom all we know is that he identifies with the oppressed, and that he has apparently lost his wife and children. He is a scientific genius who roams the depths of the sea in his submarine, the Nautilus. In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea he states that the laws of the world on the surface do not apply to him any longer, and that he has fled to the sea to escape the barbarism of the human race, with its wars and oppression. He claims to have no interest in the affairs of the world above, but occasionally intervenes to aid the oppressed, giving salvaged treasure to Cypriots resisting a Turkish invasion, or by sinking warships. Nemo goes out of his way to accommodate Professor Arronax and his companions, and also, during a diving expedition, he risks his life to save a pearl diver from a shark attack. Nemo tries to project a stern, controlled confidence, but he is driven by a thirst for vengeance, and wracked by remorse over the deaths of his crewmembers and even by the deaths of enemy sailors. In the Mysterious Island, a still mysterious but gentler Nemo secretly helps the castaways of the island and in the end warns them that the island will perish in a volcanic eruption. Nemo dies of old age just before the eruption and is buried in his ship that is then sunk.

In the initial draft of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Nemo was a Polish noble vengeful because of the murder of his family during the Russian repression of the Polish insurrection of 1863-1864. Verne's editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel feared a book ban in the Russian market and offending a French ally, the Russian Empire. He made Verne obscure Nemo's motivation in the first book.

It's in the sequel (Mysterious Island), where Nemo presents himself as Prince Dakkar, the Hindu son of an Indian rajah and nephew of Tippoo Sahib, having a deep hatred of the British conquest of India. After the Sepoy mutiny, he devotes himself to scientific research and develops an advanced electric submarine, the Nautilus. He and a crew of his loyals cruise the seas, battling injustice, especially slavery. The gold of Spanish ships sunk at the Bay of Vigo provided them with money.

It is interesting to note, however, that Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was written between 1869 and 1870 and records the voyages of the Nautilus between 1867 and 1869. Mysterious Island was written in 1874 but plays immediately after the American civil war, from 1865 to 1867. This would mean that the Captain Nemo appearing in the Mysterious Island dies before the Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea sets out on his undersea voyages (this is explained in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, however, that Nemo actually faked his death). Also, when Captain Nemo is finally met in "The Mysterious Island," he mentions having met Aronnax 16 years previously.

Appearances

Beside his original appearance in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo also appears in numerous other works though none written by Jules Verne and all works were created decades after the original books:

Portrayals

Trivia

External links

Images

Image:20000 squid Nautilus viewbay.jpg|Nemo facing a giant octopus in Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers Image:20000 Nemo North Pole flag.jpg|Captain Nemo raises his personal flag on the South Pole in Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers Image:20000 Nemo organ.jpg|Captain Nemo playing the organ Image:Nemo s death.jpg|Captain Nemo's death in Mysterious Island Image:Nemo-shah.jpg|Captain Nemo played by James Mason.

Image:Captain Nemo (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2).jpg|Captain Nemo in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Image:Captain Nemo (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).jpg|Captain Nemo in 1867 by Kevin O'Neill

Jules Verne | Characters in written science fiction | Fictional anarchists | Fictional scientists | Fictional Indians | Fictional mass murderers | Science fiction film characters | Fictional explorers | Fictional captains | Fictional sailors | Fictional warriors

Capitán Nemo | Capitaine Némo | Capitano Nemo | ネモ船長 | Kapitan Nemo (bohater literacki) | Capitão Nemo | Капитан Немо

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Captain Nemo".

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