The Sea-Wolf

“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.

“It may cripple you some, but all the same you’ll be learning to walk. That’s what you call a paradox, isn’t it?”

These are Larsen’s words to Humphrey during Humphrey’s first few days on the Ghost. After Larsen brutally kicks Humphrey for a mistake and injures Humphrey’s knee, Humphrey must nevertheless fulfill his role as cabin boy. Larsen’s motivations for keeping Humphrey on his ship are reflected in this quote both figuratively and literally. He wants Humphrey to learn to “walk” on his own without the help of his family’s wealth, and he wants Humphrey to experience the demands placed upon working-class people.

“At once he became an enigma. One side or the other of his nature was perfectly comprehensible, but both sides together were bewildering.”

Humphrey becomes obsessed with analyzing Larsen’s characteristics because he is unable to reconcile the idea of a violent yet intellectual man, having never encountered that before. Larsen seems to upend all of Humphrey’s notions as to what extensive reading and education do to a man. The inscrutable coexistence of violence and intellect directly echoes Larsen’s wry comment on “paradox” (31).

“I could kill you now with a blow of my fist, for you are a miserable weakling. But if we are immortal, what is the reason for this?”

Larsen says this to Humphrey during a discussion on the immortality of the soul. Larsen does not believe in the soul’s immortality because it implies that there is no reason for life. If he is able to kill Humphrey, but still be immortal, why should killing be considered immoral in the first place? Larsen’s rationale, here, indirectly suggests his lack of empathy; he views murder in a vaguely utilitarian sense, strictly in terms of its putting an end to life rather than in terms of the suffering it might cause.

“Life had always seemed a peculiarly sacred thing, but here it counted for nothing.”

Humphrey has been long enough on the Ghost to recognize how much this new society differs from the one he left behind on land. On the Ghost, strength rules. Murder, physical punishment, and other bodily harm are a matter of course—an idea alien to Humphrey’s gentlemanly upbringing. Death is an ever-present and active participant in life on the open ocean.

“One man cannot wrong another. He can only wrong himself.”

Larsen’s words indicate his philosophy on the purpose of life as a struggle between wills, and this quote provides his rationale for not returning Humphrey’s stolen money. By doing so, he would deprive himself of pleasure. Since he believes a man can only wrong himself, depriving himself of any pleasure would be a “wrong.” Materialism and a complete absence of altruism sit at the core of Larsen’s morality.

“At sight of a sharp knife and a cowardly cockney, the clinging of life to life overcomes all your fond foolishness. Why, my dear fellow, you will live forever. You are a god, and God cannot be killed.”

Larsen explains to Humphrey his philosophy of fear in relation to the immortal soul. If Humphrey believes in God and the prospect of his soul’s immortality, then fear is unnecessary. Larsen argues that to be fearful evinces absolute death and the cessation of the soul, which does not accord with Humphrey’s religious ideals. However, Larsen’s rationale also indirectly reveals a theology of control; immortality, Larsen suggests, is reserved only for God and not God’s created souls. In this dynamic, humanity remains utterly subordinate, and God does not share his eternal nature with humanity by giving them immortality. It is a wholly unequal relationship, and this profound disposition manifests in Larsen’s comportment as captain and his treatment of the crew.

“But he laughs rarely; he is too often sad. And it is a sadness as deep-reaching as the roots of the race. It is the race heritage, the sadness which has made the race sober-minded, clean-lived, and fanatically moral and which in this latter connection has culminated among the English in the Reformed Church and Mrs. Grundy.”

As part of his analysis of Larsen’s character, Humphrey makes sweeping generalizations about Larsen’s Scandinavian heritage. Beyond providing insight into Larsen’s heritage, this quote exemplifies Humphrey’s propensity for over-generalizing groups of people (here, an entire race) based on the books he’s read. This typifies his deficiency in practical, real-world experience.

“And he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy living it to think about it. My mistake was in ever opening the books.”

Wolf Larsen says this of his brother, Death Larsen, who does not pursue an intellectual life in the same way Wolf does. This quote exposes Larsen’s contradictory frustration with knowledge: The more he comes to know, the less content he is with a working-class life. However, for all Wolf’s exaltation of willpower, he believes himself fatalistically confined by class; he believes that having been born into his class, he can never move beyond it.

“But that men should wreak their anger on others by the bruising of the flesh and the letting of blood was something strangely and fearfully new to me.”

Humphrey is used to a genteel society in which etiquette and morality reign. Being part of the crew of Ghost is an entirely different society as violence and selfishness drive many of the men’s actions. Humphrey’s combined refinement and naiveté find succinct expression even in his diction as he gives violence an almost comically lyrical description: “bruising of the flesh” and “letting of the blood.”

“It strikes me as unnatural and unhealthful that men should be totally separated from women and herd through the world by themselves. Coarseness and savagery are the inevitable results.”

Prior to the introduction of Maud’s character, Humphrey revaluates the women he’s known and the part they play in society. Humphrey is quickly falling to the influence of the Ghost’s environment and worries that he himself will become violent. Additionally, this quote reveals the strictness of gender roles in Humphrey’s society.

“One thing I was beginning to feel, and that was that I could never again be quite the same man I had been. While my hope and faith in human life still survived Wolf Larsen’s destructive criticism, he had nevertheless been a cause of change in minor matters. He had opened up for me the world of the real, of which I had known practically nothing and from which I had always shrunk. I had learned to look more closely at life as it was lived, to recognize that there were such things as facts in the world, to emerge from the realm of mind and idea and to place certain values on the concrete and objective phases of existence.”

Humphrey’s character is in a state of transition as he acknowledges that, while Larsen’s methods are brutal, ultimately it is beneficial to him to experience life as it is lived by other classes of men. This passage also encapsulates Larsen’s transformative power within Humphrey’s character arc; no other character, with the possible exception of Maud, has this profound an effect on Humphrey.

“And as this idea of fulfilling Wolf Larsen’s order persisted in my dazed consciousness, I seemed to see him standing at the wheel in the midst of the wild welter, pitting his will against the will of the storm and defying it.”

As Larsen and Humphrey struggle to sail the Ghost and reclaim the boats during a hunt, Humphrey acknowledges the necessity for a strong-willed and commanding captain. Larsen may be brutal, but he keeps the men of the Ghost doing their jobs and keeping them from being killed at sea. This is another of the “paradox[es]” (31) in Larsen’s character. The categorical villain of the novel, he nevertheless has distinctly heroic qualities—qualities that shine in the rather romantic portrait this passage presents.

“She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of a hungry outreaching for her, as of a starving man for bread.”

Humphrey’s first glance at Maud Brewster foreshadows his eventual love for her. After so long surrounded by men, Humphrey begins to acknowledge the necessity for the kind of feminine energy that Maud brings onto the Ghost. She provides a delicacy and gentleness that could hardly contrast more starkly with the hypermasculine austerity and violence of the crew.

“‘Bravo!’ he cried. ‘You do me proud, Hump! You’ve found your legs with a vengeance. You’re quite an individual. You were unfortunate in having your life cast in easy places, but you’re developing, and I like you the better for it.’”

With Maud’s introduction into the plot, Humphrey finds a new source of confidence and responsibility. In this quote, Larsen expresses his surprise and pride at Humphrey’s backbone in standing up to him. Humphrey’s character development progresses rapidly under Maud’s influence. Larsen and Maud are two prime sources of transformation within Humphrey’s character arc, and their combined presence is especially powerful.

“By the way, what do you do for a living?”

Larsen asks this question of Maud during their first meal together, which echoes the questions he posed to Humphrey at the beginning of the narrative. Larsen measures others by the amount of work they do or have done. For those who have not had to earn their own living (like Humphrey), he takes it upon himself to teach them humility.

“For moral courage is a worthless asset on this little floating world.”

As Johnson and Leach vie to depose Larsen from command, Humphrey observes how their sense of morality is too great for such a community as the crew of the Ghost. The “little floating world” accurately portrays the ship as being outside of law, society, and morality, operating entirely independent from the rest of civilization. Only Larsen’s word matters.

“I told them we wanted live men, not carcasses. But the joy of shooting to hit is a most compelling thing when once you’ve learned how to shoot.”

During the brief, small-scale war with the Macedonia’s boats, Larsen commands his hunters to attack their foes without killing them; some crew members cannot help themselves. While these lines exemplify Larsen’s philosophy on the impulse to gain physical mastery over other men as the basis for life, they also suggest how quickly one can be influenced to violence when constantly surrounded by it.

“The coming of Maud Brewster into my life seemed to have transformed me. After all, I thought, it is better and finer to love than to be loved, if it makes something in life so worthwhile that one is not loath to die for it.”

As Humphrey orchestrates his escape with Maud, he reflects upon love’s power to motivate him to take chances and master fear of his own death. Love as the answer to fear is the direct opposite of Larsen’s antidote for fear, which is brutality and faithlessness. Moreover, the notion of not being “loath to die” presents the idea of self-sacrifice which, in turn, responds to Larsen’s earlier philosophical assertions: If fear of death precludes the soul’s immortality, there is then the question of what a willing death—or self-sacrifice out of love—implies about the soul.

“Responsibility of this sort was a new thing to me. Wolf Larsen had been quite right. I had stood on my father’s legs. My lawyers and agents had taken care of my money for me. I had no responsibilities at all. Then, on the Ghost I had learned to be responsible for myself. And now, for the first time in my life, I found myself responsible for someone else.”

On Endeavor Island, Humphrey reviews how much he’s changed since coming aboard the Ghost. Larsen’s task of inspiring a greater sense of independence in Humphrey has not only worked but expanded to allow him to take responsibility for protecting the woman he loves.

“‘They are so pretty,’ she objected. ‘I cannot bear to think of it being done. It is so directly brutal, you know, so different from shooting them.’”

Maud says this to Humphrey before they go seal hunting on Endeavor Island. Maud favors the indirect brutality of using a gun to kill the seals, similar to the kinds of indirection that constitute the etiquette within her social class. Meanwhile, killing the seals with a club can be linked to the direct forms of brutality the pair have witnessed since boarding the Ghost.

“But at the end of the week the smoke ceased rising from the galley, and he no longer showed himself on the poop. I could see Maud’s solicitude again growing, though she timidly—and even proudly, I think—forbore a repetition of her request. She was divinely altruistic, and she was a woman. Besides, I was myself aware of hurt at thought of this man whom I had tried to kill dying alone with his fellow creatures so near. He was right. The code of my group was stronger than I. The fact that he had hands, feet, and a body shaped somewhat like mine constituted a claim which I could not ignore.”

After Larsen and the Ghost are marooned on Endeavor Island, Larsen becomes blind and debilitated. Rather than consigning their enemy to die alone, Maud and Humphrey strive to be present during Larsen’s final days so that he doesn’t have to die alone. This kind of empathy is what constitutes civilization at the most radical level—not education, Western convention, upper-class white ideals, or wealth—and it is this seed of civilization that Maud and Humphrey carry with them even when they are physically remote from the rest of humanity. It is Maud’s character who inspires this empathy.