The Sea-Wolf

by

Jack London

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The story’s antagonist, Wolf Larsen is the captain of a seal-hunting vessel called the Ghost. He rescues Humphrey Van Weyden after spotting him adrift in the sea following a ferry wreck, then he forces Van Weyden to stay aboard the Ghost and work as a cabin boy. Wolf Larsen is powerfully built and handsome. The novel never mentions his real name—everyone refers to him by the nickname “Wolf,” just as they refer to his brother (and rival) by the nickname “Death” Larsen. Wolf Larsen is largely self-taught, both at sea where he started out as a cabin boy and in the arts and sciences (he is well-read and keeps a large collection of books in his cabin.) One of Wolf Larsen’s defining characteristics is his temperamental personality. At times, he is a gracious host to Van Weyden, capable of holding long philosophical discussions. At other times, however, he is cruel and even murderous. Wolf Larsen is a big believer in Charles Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest”—he frequently instigates conflict among his crew to weed out weak crew members. At times, though, Wolf seems to enjoy cruelty for its own sake. Wolf Larsen is also noteworthy for his committed belief in materialism, the idea that there’s no such thing as eternal life. Wolf’s materialism puts him at odds with Maud Brewster and Van Weyden, who both believe in idealism and the existence of immortal souls. Though Wolf Larsen’s uncompromising methods as a leader initially instill fear in his subordinates, by the end of the story, his whole crew abandons him, and his health rapidly declines. Even in his illness, however, Wolf remains vicious and uncompromising—when Van Weyden tries to steal the Ghost, for instance, Wolf Larsen tries to kill him. Wolf Larsen is a complex, morally ambiguous character. On the one hand, he represents the appeal of self-reliance and the power of strength and fear. On the other hand, his demise illustrates the limits of these philosophies, which can sometimes lead to misery and loneliness.

Wolf Larsen Quotes in The Sea-Wolf

The The Sea-Wolf quotes below are all either spoken by Wolf Larsen or refer to Wolf Larsen. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Self-Reliance and Maturation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel being swallowed up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the wheel, and the head of the other man turning, slowly turning, as his gaze struck the water and casually lifted along it toward me. His face wore an absent expression, as of deep thought, and I became afraid that if his eyes did light upon me he would nevertheless not see me. But his eyes did light upon me, and looked squarely into mine; and he did see me, for he sprang to the wheel, thrusting the other man aside, and whirled it round and round, hand over hand, at the same time shouting orders of some sort. The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent to its former course and leapt almost instantly from view into the fog.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen
Related Symbols: Seals
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose upon the dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips in a continuous stream. And they were not namby-pamby oaths, or mere expressions of indecency. Each word was a blasphemy, and there were many words. They crisped and crackled like electric sparks.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen
Related Symbols: Wind
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on dead men’s legs. You’ve never had any of your own. You couldn’t walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals. Let me see your hand.

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“I believe that life is a mess,” he answered promptly. “It is like yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move, the strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all. What do you make of those things?”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

I have made the acquaintance of another one of the crew,—Louis he is called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irishman, and a very sociable fellow, prone to talk as long as he can find a listener. In the afternoon, while the cook was below asleep and I was peeling the everlasting potatoes, Louis dropped into the galley for a “yarn.” His excuse for being aboard was that he was drunk when he signed. He assured me again and again that it was the last thing in the world he would dream of doing in a sober moment. It seems that he has been seal-hunting regularly each season for a dozen years, and is accounted one of the two or three very best boat-steerers in both fleets.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Louis
Related Symbols: Seals
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:

Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it’s life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“One hundred and eighty-five dollars even,” he said aloud. “Just as I thought. The beggar came aboard without a cent.”

“And what you have won is mine, sir,” I said boldly.

He favoured me with a quizzical smile. “Hump, I have studied some grammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. ‘Was mine,’ you should have said, not ’is mine.’”

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen (speaker), Thomas Mugridge
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“No,” Wolf Larsen answered, with an indescribable air of sadness. “And he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy living it to think about it. My mistake was in ever opening the books.

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , Death Larsen
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

“You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. You cannot deny it. If I should catch you by the throat, thus,”—his hand was about my throat and my breath was shut off,—“and began to press the life out of you thus, and thus, your instinct of immortality will go glimmering, and your instinct of life, which is longing for life, will flutter up, and you will struggle to save yourself. Eh? I see the fear of death in your eyes.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality. From cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Thomas Mugridge, George Leach, Johnson
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Then Wolf Larsen’s other hand reached up and clutched the edge of the scuttle. The mass swung clear of the ladder, the men still clinging to their escaping foe. They began to drop off, to be brushed off against the sharp edge of the scuttle, to be knocked off by the legs which were now kicking powerfully.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, George Leach, Johnson, Johansen
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

“I don’t think it was worth it,” I said to Wolf Larsen, “a broken boat for Kelly’s life.”

“But Kelly didn’t amount to much,” was the reply. “Good-night.”

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen (speaker)
Related Symbols: Wind
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of a hungry out-reaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. But then, I had not seen a woman for a very long time. I know that I was lost in a great wonder, almost a stupor,—this, then, was a woman?—so that I forgot myself and my mate’s duties, and took no part in helping the new-comers aboard.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Maud Brewster, George Leach, Johnson
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that promise,” he answered. “And anyway, you’ll agree I’ve not laid my hands upon them.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , George Leach, Johnson
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange quizzical smiles, as he added:

“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too, were drunk.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , Maud Brewster
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

“What of the Macedonia?”

“Not sighted,” I answered.

I could have sworn his face fell at the intelligence, but why he should be disappointed I could not conceive.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen (speaker), Death Larsen
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

Again that unnamable and unmistakable terror was in her eyes, and she said, almost in a whisper, “You are Lucifer.”

Related Characters: Maud Brewster (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , Wolf Larsen
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock. I had slept seven hours! And she had been steering seven hours! When I took the steering-oar I had first to unbend her cramped fingers. Her modicum of strength had been exhausted, and she was unable even to move from her position. I was compelled to let go the sheet while I helped her to the nest of blankets and chafed her hands and arms.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Maud Brewster
Related Symbols: Wind
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

“Hump,” he said slowly, “you can’t do it. You are not exactly afraid. You are impotent. Your conventional morality is stronger than you.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , Maud Brewster, Death Larsen
Page Number: 202
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33 Quotes

Giving over his attempt to determine the shadow, he stepped on deck and started forward, walking with a swiftness and confidence which surprised me. And still there was that hint of the feebleness of the blind in his walk. I knew it now for what it was.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Maud Brewster
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

“I am still a bit of the ferment, you see,” he wrote a little later.

“I am glad you are as small a bit as you are,” I said.

“Thank you,” he wrote. “But just think of how much smaller I shall be before I die.”

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen (speaker), Maud Brewster
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 38 Quotes

“And immortality?” Maud queried loudly in the ear.

Three times the hand essayed to write but fumbled hopelessly. The pencil fell. In vain we tried to replace it. The fingers could not close on it. Then Maud pressed and held the fingers about the pencil with her own hand and the hand wrote, in large letters, and so slowly that the minutes ticked off to each letter:

“B-O-S-H.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Maud Brewster (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

“One kiss, dear love,” I whispered. “One kiss more before they come.”

“And rescue us from ourselves,” she completed, with a most adorable smile, whimsical as I had never seen it, for it was whimsical with love.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Maud Brewster (speaker), Wolf Larsen
Related Symbols: Wind
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis:
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Wolf Larsen Quotes in The Sea-Wolf

The The Sea-Wolf quotes below are all either spoken by Wolf Larsen or refer to Wolf Larsen. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Self-Reliance and Maturation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel being swallowed up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the wheel, and the head of the other man turning, slowly turning, as his gaze struck the water and casually lifted along it toward me. His face wore an absent expression, as of deep thought, and I became afraid that if his eyes did light upon me he would nevertheless not see me. But his eyes did light upon me, and looked squarely into mine; and he did see me, for he sprang to the wheel, thrusting the other man aside, and whirled it round and round, hand over hand, at the same time shouting orders of some sort. The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent to its former course and leapt almost instantly from view into the fog.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen
Related Symbols: Seals
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose upon the dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips in a continuous stream. And they were not namby-pamby oaths, or mere expressions of indecency. Each word was a blasphemy, and there were many words. They crisped and crackled like electric sparks.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen
Related Symbols: Wind
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on dead men’s legs. You’ve never had any of your own. You couldn’t walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals. Let me see your hand.

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

“I believe that life is a mess,” he answered promptly. “It is like yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move, the strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all. What do you make of those things?”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

I have made the acquaintance of another one of the crew,—Louis he is called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irishman, and a very sociable fellow, prone to talk as long as he can find a listener. In the afternoon, while the cook was below asleep and I was peeling the everlasting potatoes, Louis dropped into the galley for a “yarn.” His excuse for being aboard was that he was drunk when he signed. He assured me again and again that it was the last thing in the world he would dream of doing in a sober moment. It seems that he has been seal-hunting regularly each season for a dozen years, and is accounted one of the two or three very best boat-steerers in both fleets.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Louis
Related Symbols: Seals
Page Number: 36
Explanation and Analysis:

Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it’s life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“One hundred and eighty-five dollars even,” he said aloud. “Just as I thought. The beggar came aboard without a cent.”

“And what you have won is mine, sir,” I said boldly.

He favoured me with a quizzical smile. “Hump, I have studied some grammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. ‘Was mine,’ you should have said, not ’is mine.’”

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen (speaker), Thomas Mugridge
Page Number: 51
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“No,” Wolf Larsen answered, with an indescribable air of sadness. “And he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy living it to think about it. My mistake was in ever opening the books.

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , Death Larsen
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

“You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. You cannot deny it. If I should catch you by the throat, thus,”—his hand was about my throat and my breath was shut off,—“and began to press the life out of you thus, and thus, your instinct of immortality will go glimmering, and your instinct of life, which is longing for life, will flutter up, and you will struggle to save yourself. Eh? I see the fear of death in your eyes.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Page Number: 70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality. From cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Thomas Mugridge, George Leach, Johnson
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

Then Wolf Larsen’s other hand reached up and clutched the edge of the scuttle. The mass swung clear of the ladder, the men still clinging to their escaping foe. They began to drop off, to be brushed off against the sharp edge of the scuttle, to be knocked off by the legs which were now kicking powerfully.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, George Leach, Johnson, Johansen
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

“I don’t think it was worth it,” I said to Wolf Larsen, “a broken boat for Kelly’s life.”

“But Kelly didn’t amount to much,” was the reply. “Good-night.”

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen (speaker)
Related Symbols: Wind
Page Number: 112
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of a hungry out-reaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. But then, I had not seen a woman for a very long time. I know that I was lost in a great wonder, almost a stupor,—this, then, was a woman?—so that I forgot myself and my mate’s duties, and took no part in helping the new-comers aboard.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Maud Brewster, George Leach, Johnson
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

“I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that promise,” he answered. “And anyway, you’ll agree I’ve not laid my hands upon them.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , George Leach, Johnson
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange quizzical smiles, as he added:

“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too, were drunk.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , Maud Brewster
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

“What of the Macedonia?”

“Not sighted,” I answered.

I could have sworn his face fell at the intelligence, but why he should be disappointed I could not conceive.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen (speaker), Death Larsen
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

Again that unnamable and unmistakable terror was in her eyes, and she said, almost in a whisper, “You are Lucifer.”

Related Characters: Maud Brewster (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , Wolf Larsen
Page Number: 166
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock. I had slept seven hours! And she had been steering seven hours! When I took the steering-oar I had first to unbend her cramped fingers. Her modicum of strength had been exhausted, and she was unable even to move from her position. I was compelled to let go the sheet while I helped her to the nest of blankets and chafed her hands and arms.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Maud Brewster
Related Symbols: Wind
Page Number: 175
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 32 Quotes

“Hump,” he said slowly, “you can’t do it. You are not exactly afraid. You are impotent. Your conventional morality is stronger than you.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden , Maud Brewster, Death Larsen
Page Number: 202
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 33 Quotes

Giving over his attempt to determine the shadow, he stepped on deck and started forward, walking with a swiftness and confidence which surprised me. And still there was that hint of the feebleness of the blind in his walk. I knew it now for what it was.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen, Maud Brewster
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

“I am still a bit of the ferment, you see,” he wrote a little later.

“I am glad you are as small a bit as you are,” I said.

“Thank you,” he wrote. “But just think of how much smaller I shall be before I die.”

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Wolf Larsen (speaker), Maud Brewster
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 38 Quotes

“And immortality?” Maud queried loudly in the ear.

Three times the hand essayed to write but fumbled hopelessly. The pencil fell. In vain we tried to replace it. The fingers could not close on it. Then Maud pressed and held the fingers about the pencil with her own hand and the hand wrote, in large letters, and so slowly that the minutes ticked off to each letter:

“B-O-S-H.”

Related Characters: Wolf Larsen (speaker), Maud Brewster (speaker), Humphrey Van Weyden
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

“One kiss, dear love,” I whispered. “One kiss more before they come.”

“And rescue us from ourselves,” she completed, with a most adorable smile, whimsical as I had never seen it, for it was whimsical with love.

Related Characters: Humphrey Van Weyden (speaker), Maud Brewster (speaker), Wolf Larsen
Related Symbols: Wind
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis: