Poe's Stories: Manuscript Found in a Bottle Summary & Analysis

The narrator of "Manuscript" begins by describing his background. He is from a wealthy family and has a good methodical mind, which leads him to an interest in the German moralists, not from admiration but from pleasure at being able to prove them wrong. In fact, he is so methodical, that he has often been reproached for it. The reason he's telling us this is so that we don’t suspect that the fantastical tale to follow is a symptom of a fanciful imagination and so that it will impress us all the more.

The narrator of "Manuscript" spends many years travelling. One day, he took a trip by boat to the Archipelago Islands, with no better reason than his restless disposition. He describes the ship as a massive vessel, carrying lots of Indian produce, clumsily stowed. The ship sets sail with barely a breeze and goes along for a while without meeting anything. Then, a cloud appears in the sky, remarkable not just for its strange form but because it is the first one they've seen. The narrator watches it turn into a band across the sky and also notices a change in the moon and the sea, and everything becomes very humid. There is no breeze at all.

The captain and crew are relaxed but the narrator of "Manuscript" is worried that a storm is coming and can’t sleep. He goes out on deck at midnight. Suddenly he hears a humming noise, and then the whole ship seems to shake. A wave of foam comes over the ship and soaks it. Slowly and heavily, the ship rights itself, but the narrator is stuck between the stern post and the rudder. He gets himself out and dizzily assesses the situation. The ship is in a whirlpool, overwhelmed on all sides by water. The narrator hears the voice of a Swedish ship mate, calls to him and he pulls himself over to the man. They think that the rest of the crew have been taken overboard and have surely perished.

As the water continues to soar and crash above them, the narrator of "Manuscript" and his shipmate spend five days trying to keep the ship away from the brink of the whirlpool. On the fifth day, the skies and sea become cold. The sun seems sickly and does not give out much light, and then disappears at sunset and leaves a dull moonlight and then darkness. This darkness surrounds them and they await the sixth day in vain. They eventually stop trying to take care of the ship and set themselves up in a nook and watch the storm, unable to calculate time and expecting each new burst of storm.

The ship rises high on some swells, as if into the sky, and the next moment descends low into valleys between waves. It is in one of these depths that the shipmates see a strange red light, flooding their deck, and realize, looking up, that it belongs to another vessel, the biggest ship they’ve ever seen, with a huge, black, bare hull and a row of canons. The ship rises on the pinnacle of ocean in front of them, balanced there for a second and then comes down. The narrator of "Manuscript" is thrown onto the deck of the ambushing ship.

For some reason, the narrator of "Manuscript" doesn’t alert the crew on board this new ship and secretly stows himself in the hold. He cannot explain why he hides himself, other than to say that the crew inspired some kind of awe and curiosity in him that he could not immediately confront. He makes a hiding place by removing some of the boards of the deck and shifting himself into a nook in the hold. Soon the appearance of an old man forces him to use his hidey hole. The man’s extreme age and infirmity surprises the narrator, but the man also has a curious manner, of childishness and godliness at once, and he speaks to himself in an unintelligible mutter.

The narrator of "Manuscript" tells us that an inexplicable feeling has taken hold of him. Some time has elapsed. The narrator has been living on the boat unseen by its crew, but not through effort on his part – the men just seem to wander around deck, speaking this incomprehensible language and do not notice him. He sneaks into the captain’s cabin and takes some writing materials, and vows to write down his experiences and put them in a bottle out to sea.

The rest of the tale is written in installments like a diary. The narrator of "Manuscript" describes a recent outing from his dwelling onto the deck where he finds a loose sail and paints on it the word DISCOVERY, but the crew raises the sail without noticing the word. He also tries to figure out what kind of ship it is. It seems familiar in so many ways to the kind of vessel he’s used to, but has a strange aura of antiquity at the same time. He later realizes that even the raw material the ship is built from is a mystery to him. It looks like some kind of Spanish oak but changed by unnatural forces. It reminds him of a quote from an old Dutch seaman about a ship growing from the sea.

The narrator of "Manuscript" decides to walk among the crew, but again he goes unnoticed. The men are infirm and grey, and fiddle around with mysterious instruments, speaking in their strange language. The ship is caught in a dreadful wind; its huge sails are not even enough to keep it from heading quickly due south. The journey is rough. The narrator struggles to keep his balance but the crew seem to be immune to the shifting sea. Frequently, the narrator senses doom ahead but the ship survives. The massive vessel seems almost to be supernaturally able to defy gravity, when it should plunge into the depths, it jumps free of danger.

The narrator of "Manuscript" describes his sighting of the ship’s captain, who is similar to him in height and size but looks remarkably ancient. Every feature on his face seems like a record of time. Around his quarters are the same scientific instruments and antique charts that the narrator has witnessed across the vessel, and the captain, too, speaks to himself in an unintelligible mumble, which seems to come from far away even though he is standing near. The whole crew are creatures of an antique time, and they baffle and fascinate the narrator.

The ship is surrounded by night and now walls of ice. The narrator of "Manuscript" admits he was silly to be afraid of the rough sea previously, as all of those terrors are mild compared to the sheer force of the ocean here. The ship is rushing headlong as if on an unstoppable tide. The narrator is terrified. But he is also very curious. He knows that they are heading for a vey interesting discovery and the ferocity of the ship’s drive forward makes him excited to find out what wilderness they will uncover.

The crew has the appearance of eagerness and impatience, as if they too are waiting for this discovery. But then, the ice around them opens and the ship is being pulled in to the icy current. The narrator of "Manuscript" knows this is it. They are plunging into the whirlpool. He narrates as they go, and the last words are a fearful “going down.”