Captain Nemo plays his piano-organ in key moments in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, forming a motif. For example, at the end of Part 1 of the novel (in Chapter 22), while Aronnax, Ned, and Conseil are being attacked by Papuans, Nemo is in a trance-like state playing the organ. Aronnax finds him experiencing “a musical ecstasy” after escaping the attack:
I descended to the drawing-room, from whence I heard some chords. Captain Nemo was there, bending over his organ, and plunged in a musical ecstasy.
The ecstatic way that Captain Nemo plays the organ shows that he is not as rational and emotionally stable as he tries to project. Instead of monitoring his prisoners while they wander about on land, he becomes immersed in the emotionality of music.
Similarly, at the end of Part 2 of the novel (in Chapter 22), Nemo again turns to his organ in a dramatic moment. Aronnax hears the sounds of the organ while processing the horror of watching Nemo destroy a boat full of innocent people:
At that moment I heard the distant strains of the organ, a sad harmony to an undefinable chant, the wail of a soul longing to break these earthly bonds. I listened with every sense, scarcely breathing; plunged, like Captain Nemo, in that musical ecstasy, which was drawing him in spirit to the end of life.
Here Nemo’s organ music again represents his inner feelings, only in a more acute way. As Aronnax notes, the music was like “the wail of a soul longing to break these earthly bonds.” Nemo is a gifted scientist and seaman, yes, but he is also a man who witnessed the death of his wife and child at the hands of a colonial power. Nemo’s relationship to music communicates how, despite his intelligence and strict adherence to the rational ways of science, he is first and foremost a human motivated by revenge and grief.
Captain Nemo plays his piano-organ in key moments in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, forming a motif. For example, at the end of Part 1 of the novel (in Chapter 22), while Aronnax, Ned, and Conseil are being attacked by Papuans, Nemo is in a trance-like state playing the organ. Aronnax finds him experiencing “a musical ecstasy” after escaping the attack:
I descended to the drawing-room, from whence I heard some chords. Captain Nemo was there, bending over his organ, and plunged in a musical ecstasy.
The ecstatic way that Captain Nemo plays the organ shows that he is not as rational and emotionally stable as he tries to project. Instead of monitoring his prisoners while they wander about on land, he becomes immersed in the emotionality of music.
Similarly, at the end of Part 2 of the novel (in Chapter 22), Nemo again turns to his organ in a dramatic moment. Aronnax hears the sounds of the organ while processing the horror of watching Nemo destroy a boat full of innocent people:
At that moment I heard the distant strains of the organ, a sad harmony to an undefinable chant, the wail of a soul longing to break these earthly bonds. I listened with every sense, scarcely breathing; plunged, like Captain Nemo, in that musical ecstasy, which was drawing him in spirit to the end of life.
Here Nemo’s organ music again represents his inner feelings, only in a more acute way. As Aronnax notes, the music was like “the wail of a soul longing to break these earthly bonds.” Nemo is a gifted scientist and seaman, yes, but he is also a man who witnessed the death of his wife and child at the hands of a colonial power. Nemo’s relationship to music communicates how, despite his intelligence and strict adherence to the rational ways of science, he is first and foremost a human motivated by revenge and grief.
