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I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion.
-The Sea Wolf, Jack London
The Sea Adventure
We’re two stories deep into our literary voyage. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.
Sea stories are particularly well-suited to adventure.
Our first two novels, The Sea Wolf and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, are both stories of adventure at sea. They possess vastly different themes and yet share so many features vital to adventure. Here are three.
A clear transition from the ordinary to the special world.
In his landmark work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell clarified the elements present within any great story, modern or ancient. In his honor, Chris Vogler penned The Writer’s Journey, in which he simplified Campbell’s story structure. Central to the story structure he expounded is a transition from the ordinary to the special world.
The ordinary world is where we meet the protagonist. The adventure begins when the hero crosses the threshold and enters the special world.
In our sea narratives, this transition is remarkably clear. It’s the moment when the hero finds himself (the heroes of these two novels are both male) separated from shore and cast into an entirely new environment.
In The Sea Wolf, it occurs for Humphrey Van Weyden when the Ghost rescues him. And the transition is further solidified when Wolf refuses to return Hump to shore, instead forcing him into a position aboard the ship.
The burial of the dead mate serves as Hump’s introduction to his special world. He’s shocked and made physically ill by the harsh and callous brutality he witnesses. However, he adapts and learns to survive in this strange and new context.
His pursuit of survival in the special world is the adventure.
In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea the transition is just as clear. The moment Captain Nemo tells Professor Aronnax that his fate is forever sealed to the Nautilus, the primary adventure of the novel is underway.
In each case, they find themselves cast into the special world of the sea, realizing that the ordinary world of land has been entirely cut off. It’s as clear of a transition as you can ask for, and one you see repeated over and over again.
A community with an unstable culture.
As humans, we’re not biologically suited to aquatic life. So, our experience of the sea is always delivered through a vessel.
In The Sea Wolf, it’s the sealing schooner, The Ghost. In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, it’s captain Nemo’s submarine, The Nautilus.
Each vessel is a tiny community, bearing its own unique culture to be observed and studied. Each vessel is a microcosm of humanity. After describing the Ghost, Humphrey Van Weyden writes this.
I am giving these details so that the size of this little floating world which holds twenty-two men may be appreciated. It is a very little world, a mote, a speck, and I marvel that men should dare to venture the sea on a contrivance so small and fragile.
Each vessel possesses its own culture, and several factors play into it. For one, the purpose of the voyage, since certain purposes attract certain types of people. The Ghost is filled with hunters and sailors. The Nautilus is host to men who have sworn off society for good and instead have committed themselves to lives at sea with Captain Nemo. These men shape the culture aboard these vessels.
Yet clearly, the most significant element of each vessel’s culture is the captain.
Aboard the Ghost, Wolf Larsen has the opportunity to offer clemency, to be beneficent in his dealings with the men. Instead, he opts for brutality. Even his decision to force Hump into the voyage demonstrates his power on this vessel.
The same is true of Captain Nemo. He tells Professor Aronnax in clear and uncertain terms that he is forever bound to the Nautilus. The professor is far more prisoner than tourist aboard this vessel, and the choice is entirely Nemo’s.
This also contributes to the suitability of sea stories for adventure. Because one defining factor of adventure is the loss of control and certainty. Aboard such vessels, control is completely lost and given over to one person—the captain.
The sea itself presents a constant danger.
The sea is beautiful. And those who’ve committed their lives to it, at least in these stories, possess a great affection for it. Yet, they’re never confused about its indifference toward them. Or its danger.
Here are a few passages describing this oscillation between adoration and reverent fear.
Hump speaks of the cruelty of the sea, though later he learns to love and adore it.
Then it was the cruelty of the sea, its relentlessness and awfulness, rushed upon me. Life had become cheap and tawdry, a beastly and inarticulate thing, a soulless stirring of the ooze and slime. I held on to the weather rail, close by the shores, and gazed out across the desolate foaming waves to the low-lying fog-banks that hid San Francisco and the California coast. Rain-squalls were driving in between, and I could scarcely see the fog. And this strange vessel, with its terrible men, pressed under by the wind and sea and ever leaping up and out, was heading away into the south-west, into the great and lonely Pacific expanse.
Johnson’s love of the sea is portrayed, even though the sea itself is what takes his life.
Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the crosstrees, watching the Ghost cleaving the water under the press of sail. There is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about in a sort of trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the foaming wake, and the heave and the run of her over the liquid mountains that are moving with us in stately procession.
Hump considers that the sea will likely be his cemetery and seemingly shudders at the thought.
I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion.
Here Hump finally learns to love the sea, primarily for the challenges it presents to humanity. The triumph of humans within it is something that should not be possible.
Once more the Ghost bore away before the storm, this time so submerging herself that for some seconds I thought she would never reappear. Even the wheel, quite a deal higher than the waist, was covered and swept again and again. At such moments I felt strangely alone with God, alone with him and watching the chaos of his wrath. And then the wheel would reappear, and Wolf Larsen’s broad shoulders, his hands gripping the spokes and holding the schooner to the course of his will, himself an earth god, dominating the storm, flinging its descending waters from him and riding it to his own ends. And oh, the marvel of it! the marvel of it! That tiny men should live and breath and work, and drive so frail a contrivance of wood and cloth through so tremendous an elemental strife.
In other passages, London calls the sea “the great faithless one.” He calls it the terrible sea, and remarks about its lonely immensity, in which he’s oppressed by its greatness and yet marvels at the miracle of tiny life, living and struggling to live upon its waves.
In both novels, the lives of many are claimed at sea. Upon their deaths, to the sea, they are given. The sea is beautiful and terrible. A constant danger.
For these reasons, sea stories are particularly well-suited to adventure.
Gladly, our voyage is just beginning.