The Mysterious Island. Jules Verne
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while Verne’s rational mind sympathizes with Smith, his instinctive preference often goes to Nemo. The captain is in touch with the past, literary and artistic values, the invisible, the unconscious, and the fantastic—and he uses the telegraph for real communication rather than as a toy. The essential contrast is between the creativity of the tormented genius and the heartiness of the positivistic settlers. Nemo and Smith correspond to a Latin-Anglo-Saxon split, but also to a Romantic-Realist one: although Nemo has a technologically advanced vessel, he is a professional loner and meeting him is compared to meeting a dying God. His fate is appropriate: enclosed in bed, in his submarine, in the crypt, in the Island, at the bottom of the sea.
Ayrton, in contrast, is the typical gritty Scot. Despite Verne’s protests, his descent into animality does not seem entirely realistic, for many real-life cases exist where comparable isolation had little visible effect. As the only solitary Robinson in the Extraordinary Journeys, Verne seems to be making a moral point of him. But because of the sincerity of his repentance, Ayrton does not give up like his fellow settlers, and is rewarded by being the person who sees the Duncan and who saves the chest of jewelry.
What should not be glossed over is the systematic racism of the novel. Verne’s and the settlers’ prejudice is blind and unrelenting, in common with much of their century. While sympathetic, Neb the Black is described in terms of his distinctive physical appearance, but also behavior (close to animals, lack of intelligence and perseverance, etc.). Indeed unfavorable comparisons are made with Top the dog and Jup the orang-utan. A whole Chain of Beings is in fact in evidence, based on social, political, and racial factors. It ranges from blacks to whites, passing from Neb, Top, Jup, the pirates, Ayrton, Smith, Nemo, and God to the author! As François Raymond has pointed out,16 each stage “apes” the ones above it. Thus Jup, who, like Nemo, has a God’s name, imitates Pencroff’s use of a mirror. Ayrton is a pastiche of Crusoe and Nemo—but is himself parodied by the orangutan. However, the hierarchy, which must symbolize Verne’s trepidation vis-à-vis Hetzel and even his severe father, undergoes sudden underminings and reversals. Raymond wisely concludes that, rather than seek ideological coherence in MI, it is more fruitful to study the structures by which the complex meaning is conveyed.
Verne is not an acute observer of character differences, but he does create personal significance through powerful innovations in two other psychological areas.
The first is hypnotism and electrical phenomena in general. The scene where Ayrton receives Smith’s care, “like a person under the gaze of a hypnotist” (II, 16), is a defining moment of the novel, although an even more dramatic scene was cut from MS1 (see pp. xl–xli). The idea of restoring speech by taking the sufferer back to the traumatic events that provoked his illness is of course an anticipation of Freud’s seminal idea.
Throughout his life, Verne demonstrated interest in mental phenomena. There is a probable influence by Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1844), summarized in Verne’s essay “Edgar Allan Poe and his Works” (1864) as a “tale where death is suspended … by the use of magnetic sleep.” On 28 June 1850 he wrote to his parents about a “miraculous” magnétiseur (mesmerizer or hypnotist) called Alexis who gave public performances (Dumas, Jules Verne (1988), 280). Starting from his early twenties, Verne suffered from paralysis on one side of his face, but was treated in 1851 by means of electricity. From about 1873, the health of his son Michel gave him cause for concern, and in 1874 resulted in his hospitalization in the clinic of Dr. Antoine Blanche (1828–93), a renowned mental specialist who treated Nerval and Maupassant.17 It is clear, then, that Verne’s interest in the hidden workings of the mind in MI is original and is connected with his fascination at the power of electricity, most dramatically displayed through Nemo’s submarine.
The other innovation is the personification of Lincoln Island. The characters remain so strongly in our memory because of their collective relationship with their home. The only native, however, is Jup, also the only survivor from “UR,” and who will perish with the Island. Lincoln is perhaps even the novel’s main character, with its energies and changeability, its nooks and crannies, its birth and death. Accordingly, we will study its role and characteristics in detail.
The Island resembles a starfish, whereas what was originally called “Flip Island” in “UR” is a quadrilateral, of length “about 20 to 22 leagues, bigger than Elba and twice as big as St. Helena”: a clear reference to Napoleon, imprisoned on both islands. The shape of Lincoln Island, characterized as “a sort of monstrous pteropoda” (p. 95), has variously been suggested as based on Saint-Pierre, Rawaki, Cyprus, Jan Mayen, or Celebes (see Note on pp. 640–41).
The Island is in many ways a Utopia: not in the literal sense of “nowhere,” since Verne provides precise coordinates, but in terms of an ideal community. Lincoln represents a return to paradise, to roots, to agrarian calm, even if the dream is adulterated by the encroachments of modern existence and the luxuries derived from the Industrial Revolution. It attracts us because we can imagine the world remade, with new social relations. In MI the result is indeed a model, in marked contrast with later instances such as The School for Robinsons, Two Years Vacation, or William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies. It is a model also in the sense of a microcosm, an escapist reduction of the complexities of the real world. As a result, its success would be difficult to generalize, for the community is limited in size, has an unusual leader, and depends crucially on finding a native-free area.
The naming of Lincoln’s features in terms of “back home” symbolizes its colonial appropriation and the settlers’ dream of attaching themselves to the Union. Amongst the many paradoxes, of course, is that America was at this time a recently emancipated colony itself, with a strongly anti-colonial ideology. Another is that the rebel Nemo supports the colonization of the Island; another, that the model, taken from Captain Grant’s Children, is colonies founded by Scotland, itself a colony in some ways. A final irony is that the colonists’ frenetic attempts culminate merely in the derisory recreation of the colony within the motherland. Given all these tensions, we should avoid imposing an ideology on to Lincoln Island.18 Nemo’s Indian nationalism is different from Smith’s American one—and Verne supports neither.
At the beginning of the Extraordinary Journeys, the British were viewed very favorably, for instance in Five Weeks in a Balloon or Adventures of Captain Hatteras. During the 1870s, however, their image became less attractive, and in MI, British colonialism in India is criticized. In The Steam House (1879) a chapter entitled “The Indian Mutiny” (I, 33) shows that Verne’s views were not always anti-colonialist, but also provides information about Tippo-Sahib, Prince Dakkar’s uncle and historical model: “Under Lord Cornwallis, in 1784 … battle [was made] with Tippo-Sahib, killed on 4 May 1799, in the last assault given by General Harris on Seringapatam … In 1806, perhaps even under the inspiration of Tippo-Sahib’s son, the garrison of the native army of Madras … cut the throats of the officers and their families, shot the ill soldiers even in the hospital … through the hatred of the invaders by the invaded.” Verne’s source for MI is perhaps M. de Valbezen, cited in The Steam House and who praises the British as having brought great benefits to the whole of India.19 In sum, Verne’s opinions on even Tippo-Sahib are contradictory; and it would therefore be unwise to attempt to summarize his overall views on the British in India.
An additional inconsistency in Verne’s political views is that even the concept of progress is fraught with problems. In MI, the destruction of the Island at the end, meaning that all has been in vain, is part of a cyclical vision of human affairs. Circular repetition of life had indeed been earlier emphasized by Cyrus Smith (I, 21); it will form the central theme of “Edom” (1910), where the annihilation of civilization happens several times and may perhaps continue indefinitely in the future, generated by man’s excessive pride in his scientific achievements. The novelist’s popular reputation as an apologist for science and progress is clearly mistaken.
The island moves from the north Pacific in “UR” to the south in MI. The reason is presumably so as to be close to Ayrton’s Tabor island. Kravitz (Ibid.) remarks that in the move many landmarks are rotated through 180°: the landing place and the granite wall, for example, shift from