Dive into the Sea

At the beginning of the book, everyone in the world was discussing the possibility of a strange creature lurking under the surface of the ocean. The Main character, Professor Aronnax, claimed that it could be a giant whale, and this theory immediately caught everyone’s attention. Soon, the Americans sent out their finest searching ship, the Abraham Lincoln, to search for this “creature”, and Commander Farragut, the one in charge of this searching party, invited Professor Aronnax and his servant, Conseil, to join the search. During their search, the professor met the Canadian harpooner, Ned Land, who first saw the creature as the whole crew was executing the final search at the Japanese Sea. As they chase the strange creature, they realized that there was a strange thing of this creature, it has the speed no other sea creatures have ever had. After a night chasing, the creature stopped to rest, but when Ned threw his harpoon at it the sound that came out was like as if it had hit a iron-made structure, and the creature suddenly extinguished water at the ship, which made the professor fell into the sea. However, Conseil did not abandon his master, and Ned is also thrown over broad by the water.

The three of them were lost in the sea, but to their surprise the creature saved them and turned out to be a submarine. They are taken to a cell in the submarine for a long time, where they met the captain, Nemo, who lived based on every thing from the sea. The captain offered them freedom on the submarine, named the Nautilus, with one condition, never to leave. Throughout their voyage, the professor and his companies travel around the world to places like, the Red Sea, Mediterranean, the Arctic, and even the lost city of Atlantis. During these adventures, the professor finds out that the captain is a brilliant man, but seems to have no interest in human societies; in fact, he rather dislikes them. This negative emotion of Nemo finally surfaces when he sunk down a ship without hesitation, and that was when the three decided to leave this submarine once and for all. As they are leaving, they meet the Maelstrom; the three luckily survived, but as for the Nautilus and its crew--they are a mystery untold.

As far as I am concerned, after reading this brilliant novel written by Jules Verne, I cannot stop pondering how humans can be so different from one another, both in fiction and reality. Through the lively writing of Verne, readers can see some huge differences among characters. For example, Captain Nemo’s hatred toward civilizations and Ned Land’s desperation of leaving the isolated Nautilus. However, despite the huge gap between them, the captain and the harpooner still help each other out when in danger. This not only shows how it is possible to form a bond between two men of strikingly different personality traits, but also reflect the reality; it is shown many times in history that even archenemies can put aside their grudges to do what is best for their people. This is what the national leaders should do now -- put aside the differences and work together to gain the greater benefit for the world and all human kind.

Another brilliant idea from Verne’s novel strikes me: how can he think ahead than the other writers of his time. In this novel, he not only describes the advanced technology used on the Nautilus, but also the requirement of animal protection. These are some issues that scientists will discover a decades after the publish of this novel, but Verne writes them as if he could see through the future. In my opinion, this tells me that human beings should not be afraid to imagine, for it is our imaginations and actions that make us more advanced than any other kind of animals on the Earth. However, the more advanced humans are, the more we should be concerned of our home, Earth, because what is the use of being the most advanced being in the whole universe without a place to call home?