Captain Nemo

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Contents 1 Appearances 2 Portrayals 3 Trivia 4 External links 5 Images

This page is about the fictional character Captain Nemo. For the single by Sarah Brightman, originally by the swedish band Dive, see Captain Nemo (single).

Captain Nemo is a fictional character featured in Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1874). "Nemo" is Latin for "no-one". This name is aptly chosen. Nemo is a mysterious figure, about whom all we know is that he identifies with the oppressed, and that he has apparently lost his wife and children. He is a scientific genius who roams the depths of the sea in his submarine, the Nautilus. In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea he states that the laws of the world on the surface do not apply to him any longer, and that he has fled to the sea to escape the barbarism of the human race, with its wars and oppression. He claims to have no interest in the affairs of the world above, but occasionally intervenes to aid the oppressed, giving salvaged treasure to Cypriots resisting a Turkish invasion, or by sinking warships. Nemo goes out of his way to accommodate Professor Aronnax and his companions, and also, during a diving expedition, he risks his life to save a pearl diver from a shark attack. Nemo tries to project a stern, controlled confidence, but he is driven by a thirst for vengeance, and wracked by remorse over the deaths of his crewmembers and even by the deaths of enemy sailors. In the The Mysterious Island, a still mysterious but gentler Nemo secretly helps the castaways off the island and in the end warns them that the island will perish in a volcanic eruption. Nemo dies of old age just before the eruption and is buried in his ship that is then sunk.

In the initial draft of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Nemo was a Polish noble vengeful because of the murder of his family during the Russian repression of the Polish insurrection of 1863-1864. Verne's editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel feared a book ban in the Russian market and offending a French ally, the Russian Empire. He made Verne obscure Nemo's motivation in the first book.

It is in the sequel, The Mysterious Island, where Nemo presents himself as Prince Dakkar, the Hindu son of the rajah of Bundelkund and nephew of Tippoo Sahib, having a deep hatred of the British conquest of India. After the Sepoy mutiny, he devotes himself to scientific research and develops an advanced electric submarine, the Nautilus. He and a crew of his loyals cruise the seas, battling injustice, especially slavery. The gold of Spanish ships sunk at the Bay of Vigo provided them with money. For an in depth biography, see Part 3, Chapter 16 of The Mysterious Island.

It is interesting to note, however, that Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was written between 1869 and 1870 and records the voyages of the Nautilus between 1866 and 1867. The Mysterious Island was written in 1874 but plays immediately after the American Civil War, from 1865 to 1867. This would mean that the Captain Nemo appearing in The Mysterious Island dies before the Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea sets out on his undersea voyages. Also, when Captain Nemo is finally met in The Mysterious Island, he mentions having met Aronnax 16 years previously.

While it may be that Verne simply was not paying enough attention to continuity in his writing, another intriguing possibility suggests itself. Since 'Nemo' means 'nobody' or 'no-one' in Latin, it is possible that the mantle of Captain Nemo is one which can be assumed by more than one person, much as many different actors have represented James Bond in the lifetime of the character. In this case, the role of the concerned everyman, Nemo, can continue even after the death of one of his 'incarnations'.

[edit] Appearances

Beside his original appearance in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island, Captain Nemo also appears in numerous other works though none written by Jules Verne and all works were created decades after the original books:

• The comic book The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (and its film adaptation), which suggests that that Nemo actually faked his death in 1867.
• The novel The Computer Connection by Alfred Bester (although this is merely someone using the name)
• The Japanese anime Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, by Gainax.
• The villain in the Mighty Max episode "Around the World in Eighty Arms"
• In the Philip José Farmer novel The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, Nemo is depicted as being rather more sinister and self-serving. In addition, he is said to be an agent of the Capellans, one of two extraterrestrial factions (and, in the context of the novel, the less ethical) vying for control of the Earth and of all surviving examples of offworld technology. (As suggested by the title, Phileas Fogg is an agent of the other faction, the Eridaneans.) As well, there was allegedly more than one Captain Nemo, one of whom was James Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes.
• The novel Captain Nemo by K.J. Anderson.
• The novel Valhalla Rising by Clive Cussler
• The graphic novel trilogy Robur by Jean-Marc Lofficier
• The series "Der Hexer von Salem" by German author Wolfgang Hohlbein, which is based on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
• The manga Captain Nemo by Jason DeAngeles and Aldin Viray.

[edit] Portrayals

• Allen Holubar played Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)
• James Mason played Captain Nemo in the Walt Disney film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). His is the most famous portrayal.
• Herbert Lom played Captain Nemo in Mysterious Island (1961)
• Robert Ryan played Captain Nemo in Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969)
• Omar Sharif played Captain Nemo in La Isla misteriosa y el capitán Nemo (1973)
• Len Carlson played Captain Mark Nemo in the very loosely connected animated series The Undersea Adventures of Captain Nemo in the mid-1970's.
• José Ferrer played Captain Nemo in the TV movie and short lived TV-series The Return of Captain Nemo (1978)
• John Bach played Captain Nemo in the TV series Mysterious Island (1995)
• Michael Caine played Captain Nemo in the TV movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997)
• Ben Cross played Captain Nemo in TV movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997)
• Naseeruddin Shah played Captain Nemo in the film adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
• Patrick Stewart played Captain Nemo in the TV movie Mysterious Island (2005)

[edit] Trivia

• His name is the Latin for "nobody" or "no one", an allusion to the answer given by Odysseus to Polyphemus in the Odyssey.
• He has also been the subject of songs by Sarah Brightman and by the band, Ace of Base.
• The central character in the animated movie Finding Nemo by Disney and Pixar is named after him.
• His personal flag is Argent letter "N" on sable field.
• In the Nintendo game, Donkey Kong Country 3, K. Rool's submarine, the Knautilus, was named after Nemo's submarine.
• His name was used in the TV show Challenge Of the Super Friends episode entitled "Fairy Tales of Doom".

[edit] External links

• The Mysterious Island: The Secret of the Island: Chapter XVI. A summary of his life. It contains spoilers.
• Literary analysis of the novels of Jules Verne

[edit] Images

Nemo facing a giant octopus in Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers	Captain Nemo raises his personal flag on the South Pole in Vingt Mille Lieues Sous les Mers	Captain Nemo playing the organ	Captain Nemo's death in The Mysterious Island
Captain Nemo played by James Mason.	Captain Nemo in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen	Captain Nemo in 1867 by Kevin O'Neill