Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sea-Wolf, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Self-Reliance and Maturation
Materialism vs. Idealism
Survival of the Fittest
Love, Duty, and Choice
Summary
Analysis
Maud Brewster continues to sleep. Wolf Larsen puts the other men (three oilers and an engineer) to work. Maud Brewster asks to be let off the vessel, but Wolf Larsen forbids her, saying she should just get used to it. Maud Brewster asks Van Weyden what she can do to be useful but finds that she doesn’t have much relevant experience for the ship.
Now that Van Weyden has gotten used to life aboard the Ghost, it’s his responsibility to show Maud Brewster how things work. This further shows how he has changed as a character—he’s now performing the role that Louis played for him when he first arrived on the Ghost.
Themes
Maud Brewster recognizes Van Weyden as someone who wrote a positive review of one of her poetry volumes. It comforts her to find someone she knows, though she remains apprehensive about Wolf Larsen.
Coincidence plays a big role in the story, and one of the biggest coincidences is that in fact Maud Brewster and Van Weyden are already familiar with each other from their previous careers in literature.
Themes