Jules Vern

Book review 4

The book “20,000 Leagues under the Sea” by Jules Vern is about an amazing submarine called the Nautilus. There ship is struck by the submarine leaving a scientist, a servant and a harpooner on top of the Nautilus. They are brought down and became prisoners of the Nautilus and her Caption Nemo. They travel the sea and see amazing things like Atlantis, seaweed forests, shipwrecks and amazing formations at the bottom of the sea. As their journey continues they began to learn more and more about captain Nemo and why he lives in the sea.

A character that I found interesting was captain Nemo. He interested me because of the way he shunned the powerful and rich. He descripted the land as a destructive place as well as the humans on it. He often criticized the countries and the rich and would attack cruise ships, battle ships as well. I believe that something bad happened in his past. A quote that showed this is “That Indian diver was a human in an oppressed country, I, forever more will be one of them”. This shows how he is against people who abuse their power for the greed and desire. I believe he might have been a slave and escaped to the one place where they could not reach him, the sea and it is his refuge and sanctuary. He also might have been a person in power and seeing what he had done drove him into exile with his crew.

The message I got from the book was that humans are destructive. Humans have always been destructive towards the environment and other people. This idea has come up multiple times in the book, an example of this is when one of Nemo’s crew had died. Instead of burying him on land he buried him in the bottom of the ocean in a cemetery and after the burial he said, “Your dead sleep quietly, at least, Captain, out of reach of sharks ’Yes, sir, of sharks and men” I believe this is a reference to humans’ destructive behaviour on how we cannot leave things at peace and undisturbed. An example of this is the graves of people and tombs. Nature and the environment, beautiful places destroyed by greed like the amazon. Captain Nemo had found refuge in the sea, away from humans and their destructive behaviours. Not all humans are destructive by we are often control by greed and it is in our blood to fight for land and resources. Nemo pointed out this fact with the quote, “What is the point of arguing when it can be destroyed by force”, we are less likely to try and decided peace when we have the force stop them. This is part of human nature and we see it in the news with North Korea showing off its nuclear missiles and America threating them with its huge army’s and Airforce. With countries like Russia and China ready to stand up also. I believe that the world should not have weapons of destruction and we should rely on more of peace instead of force.

The difficulties I found for was for Mr Aronnax was either staying the futuristic Submarine for the rest of his life or trying to escape onto land. Mr Aronnax was amazed about the machinery onboard and the places he saw in the sea. But he started to miss land, humanity and its animals. Even through Captain Nemo said that they were passengers they were not allowed to leave the submarine and return to land. This was because just in case they said what the submarine was and the machinery that it possessed. Captain Nemo believe that humanity was not ready yet to hold such power. Even through it had treasures of the sea he knew that he had to escape. I believe that this is like a holiday, you go somewhere and want to stay longer, but after a while it gets boring and you want to go home. He wanted to go home because even through it was amazing he missed home and his family and life on the surface. I can relate to this because when I was in holiday in Australia, with my family and even through I was having fun I started to miss my friends and family at New Zealand.

If I were to change the title I would not. The title is great for the book and gives insight to what the book is about and what to expect. It also adds mystery to the book for the reader which is way I was drawn to the book in the first place.

I rate this book 10/10 because of how great it was. It had a good plot and was written so well by Jules Verne. It was amazing to read about the adventures achieved by Captain Nemo and the Naultis. It also addressed some world problems about humans and the environment.

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  1. Achievement Achievement with Merit Achievement with Excellence
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