Scientific Discovery and Technological Innovation Theme Analysis

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea represents a world in the midst of heady scientific discoveries and innovations. The central piece of technology through which this change is explored is Captain Nemo’s submarine, the Nautilus, which allows him to spend his life permanently roaming the oceans. The novel illustrates the new and exciting opportunities made possible by scientific discovery and innovation. Told from the point of view of a naturalist, Professor Pierre Arronax, the novel also indicates that scientific research is an important and worthwhile end in itself. At the same time, the novel is cautious about the potential of science and technology to transform the world in a positive way. It suggests that scientific and technological innovations, while exhilarating, can be used for both good and bad ends. In this sense, the novel has an ambivalent and arguably rather modern attitude toward science and technology.

The novel presents scientific research in a largely positive light, conveying this idea through the particular perspective of Prof. Arronax, who is an intelligent, dedicated, and enthusiastic naturalist. A global expert on the deep sea, Arronax’s is initially horrified when he and his shipmates, Ned and Conseil, are captured and brought onto the Nautilus by Captain Nemo. However, this turns into excitement when Arronax realizes that being confined to the Nautilus presents an unprecedented opportunity to pursue scientific research. Indeed, Arronax is able to endure (and even enjoy) the monotony of life aboard the Nautilus because he is so excited about the research opportunities that this situation enables. While Ned the harpooner and even Arronax’s intelligent and devoted servant, Conseil, are fixated on escaping the submarine, Arronax remains ambivalent about the possibility of fleeing. His research means so much to him that, after being confined to the submarine for months, he admits that if Nemo gave him the option of leaving he would probably choose to stay. Arronax’s devotion to his scientific research suggests that scientific discovery is valuable in part because it allows people to pursue a project greater than themselves. Caught up in the excitement of his research, Arronax doesn’t care that he has been totally cut off from human civilization, repeatedly put in frightening situations, and imprisoned within an underwater vessel with little hope of escape. His research allows him to set aside his own personal problems and needs and dedicate himself to learning about the wonders of the natural world (and in particular, the deep sea).

Yet while Verne may present scientific discovery as a more-or-less unmitigated good, the same is not true of the technological innovation to which scientific research leads. The technologies at Nemo’s disposal allow him to exercise despotic, almost godlike power over the people and landscape around him, most notably the “prisoners of war” whom he captures from the Abraham Lincoln: Arronax, Ned, and Conseil. The idea that technological innovation can confer an unjust advantage is also explored in the novel’s depiction of conflicts between humans and marine creatures, such as Ned’s harpooning of a shark and a dugong. Just as Nemo’s technological tools allow him to keep the three men captive aboard his boat, so is Ned able to kill a huge variety of fearsome animals that he would certainly be overpowered by without technological assistance.

At the same time, the novel’s depiction of new technology is far from entirely negative; there is also a palpable sense of excitement regarding what technology can do. This is most emphatically explored through the symbol of electricity, which represents the seemingly endless power of scientific invention and technology. While to a contemporary reader the fact that the Nautilus is powered by electricity might not seem particularly exciting or innovative, in the historical context in which the novel was written (the mid-19th century), electrical power was still a somewhat mysterious, cutting-edge, and transformative technology. This is reflected in the many rapturous passages in which Arronax describes all the things that electricity makes possible aboard the submarine: allowing the vessel to move at great speed, powering a system of internal communication within it, and illuminating it such that it appears “phosphorescent” when people first see it.

Overall, then, the novel suggests that scientific discovery is a noble pursuit, but that invention and technology should not automatically be counted as forces of good in the world. Reflecting on the fact that a vessel as technologically advanced as the Nautilus will probably not be invented for another hundred years, Arronax notes that it is a shame that the secret of its existence will die with Nemo. At the same time, over the course of the novel, Arronax becomes increasingly horrified by the isolated, confined mode of life that the Nautilus makes possible. In the end, scientific research and technology cannot repair the emotional damage that drives Nemo to abandon human society and live underwater in the first place. They are merely tools, and can produce results that are both exciting and horrifying.