Near the start of their time together aboard the Nautilus, Captain Nemo tells Aronnax about his love for the ocean, using evocative imagery in the process:
“You like the sea, Captain?”
“Yes; I love it! The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the ‘Living Infinite,’ as one of your poets has said.”
Nemo’s lyrical language here—“its breath is pure and healthy,” “stirring on all sides,” “nothing but love and emotion”—captures his passion about exploring the ocean. This powerful language helps Aronnax and readers alike understand that Nemo is not merely a violent commander but someone who cares deeply—almost religiously—about the sea.
That said, there is also a tension here—if the sea is “nothing but love and emotion” and “the embodiment of [...] a wonderful existence,” why is Nemo so unhappy? And how can he justify taking these men hostage, disrupting the loving energy of the sea? Despite his best efforts, Nemo’s militaristic ship and violent impulses are at odds with his romantic views of the sea.
After Captain Nemo’s attack on a boat full of innocent people, Aronnax watches them drown, using a metaphor to compare them to a “human ant-heap”:
The water was rising. The poor creatures were crowding the ratlines, clinging to the masts, struggling under the water. It was a human ant-heap overtaken by the sea. Paralysed, stiffened with anguish, my hair standing on end, with eyes wide open, panting, without breath, and without voice, I too was watching!
This metaphor is extremely evocative and helps readers understand how many people Nemo has just killed. This is not just one or two people, but an entire “ant-heap” made up of “poor creatures” clinging to whatever they can find. Verne’s use of imagery here—including descriptions of how Aronnax’s hair was “standing on end” and how he was “panting, without breath”—adds to the climactic devastation of this moment.
This passage says something important about the limits of human intelligence—despite the fact that Nemo is a genius, he is not necessarily moral and acts more from pain and emotionality than from reason. That he can kill so many people without any remorse shows that he is not the rational, stable person (or friend) that Aronnax believed him to be.
