Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Journey to the Center of the Earth, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Science and Discovery
Maturity and Independence
Intuition vs. Evidence
Nature vs. Civilization
Adventure
Summary
Analysis
Axel quickly sets the document back on the table and Lidenbrock resumes his calculations. Axel watches his uncle work for hours, and he falls asleep on the sofa while Lidenbrock continues to work. When he wakes, Lidenbrock is still at his task, and Axel begins to pity him. He knows that he could ease Lidenbrock’s tension by revealing what he discovered, but he stays silent, convinced that this frenzied labor is better than the certain death that will befall Lidenbrock if he solves the cipher and pursues its message.
In deciding to conceal the decryption for the sake of Lidenbrock’s safety, Axel takes on a protective role, foreshadowing the journey of maturation he will undergo over the course of the story. However, his silence is also fundamentally immature: he focuses on Lidenbrock’s safety rather than his own. This allows him to justify his secrecy as selfless, when really, Axel just doesn’t want to go.
Themes
When Martha tries to go to market, she finds that Lidenbrock has locked the household inside. Axel recalls that when his uncle is single-mindedly focused on a task, he refuses to eat or to let anyone around him eat. Axel tries to withstand his hunger as a point of honor, but as the hours pass without a meal, he decides that revealing the decrypted message to Lidenbrock might not be so disastrous after all.
Lidenbrock continues to forsake practicality for the sake of science, while Axel continues to see the world from the opposite perspective. He decides to reveal the decryption to Lidenbrock, not out of any obligation to scientific progress, but because he is hungry.
Themes
Axel reveals to Lidenbrock that the letters he dictated can be read backwards as a message in Latin. The letter instructs the reader to follow Saknussemm’s path through “the crater of the Jokul of Snäfell,” where “the shadow of Scartaris softly touches before the Kalends of July.” This path will lead the traveler to the center of the earth. Lidenbrock jumps for joy, then calms and tells Axel to join him for dinner. After dinner, he says, Axel should pack luggage for both of them.
Lidenbrock is an irritable man, but he responds to the decrypted message with unbridled joy. As Axel feared, the professor is immediately committed to taking Saknussemm’s journey, once again emphasizing Lidenbrock’s overwhelming curiosity and desire for discovery.
Themes
