Social Concerns

Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea raises some very complex social issues and moral questions. In spite of them, the story starts off at a deceptively slow and simple pace. When a mysterious object—floating cliff or sea monster— does serious damage to several ships, an investigation is started by the United States government, which invites Professor Aronnax, a foremost authority of marine life, to join an expedition. The US. ship Abraham Lincoln sets out to discover the nature of this threat to world-wide shipping. In the Indian Ocean, "the monster" rams the Lincoln, and Aronnax, his servant Conseil, and the Canadian harpooner Ned Land are thrown overboard. They are saved from drowning by the strange object they have been pursuing which turns out to be a submarine, and become prisoner-guests of its captain Nemo. The mystery that surrounds Nemo is a...