The Sea-Wolf

“I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labor which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, navigation in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of the sea.”

At the start of his narrative, Humphrey relishes that he doesn’t have to work in order to enjoy life. When Larsen meets him, Larsen’s first thought is to teach Humphrey a lesson about working class life so that Humphrey no longer takes it for granted. It is therefore, in a sense, class division that brings these men together and seals Humphrey’s fate as a hostage aboard the Ghost.

“It was a careless, unpremeditated glance, one of those haphazard things men do when they have no immediate call to do anything in particular, but act because they are alive and must do something.”

Humphrey’s thoughts foreshadow one of Larsen’s major philosophical ideas analyzed later in the text. Humphrey and Maud, both Christians, believe that life means “being,” while Larsen believes in “doing,” i.e., actively striving with one’s body to wrest power from others. The tension—of being versus doing—is analogous to the narrative’s tension between soul and body.

“But the dead man was unconcerned. He continued to grin with sardonic humor, with a cynical mockery and defiance. He was master of the situation.”

Death, and those released from life through death, are the masters of life because they no longer struggle. Humphrey’s introduction to the Ghost is paired with the mate’s death, a tragic and unnecessary demise that doesn’t fully prepare him for the brutality he will witness on the ship. The scene foreshadows the brutal milieu of the Ghost, and Humphrey’s musing on “mastery” plays into a developing theme of control and willpower.