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The Adventures of Captain Hatteras
(aka: The English At The North Pole)

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The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (Literature)
The title page of the original French edition
"Obviously, this man must die at the Pole. The volcano is the only tomb worthy of him."
Jules Verne about Captain Hatteras, responding to Executive Meddling by his publisher.

The Adventures of Captain Hatteras is a novel by Jules Verne. It follows the crew of the ship Forward; which sails from Liverpool to a destination that is at first unknown, but is then revealed to be the North Pole, that Captain John Hatteras wishes to reach for the glory of Great Britain. The first weeks of travel are easy enough but as the ship sails further north, issues begin to appear and discontent grows in the crew.

As they are left stranded in an ice-field during the polar winter of 1860, Hatteras and three companions try to reach a store established by a previous expedition to get coal and food but fail and when they come back to the Forward, they find the ship destroyed and most of the crew fled with the first mate. Left to their own devices, the abandoned men must face snow storms, polar bears, dissenssions in the team... until they finally reach their destination and Hatteras gets to fulfill the dream of his life... at a terrible personal cost.

The novel was written at a time when the polar regions were among the last parts of Earth unexplored by humans and polar exploration captured the public interest, not unlike space travel nowadays. The search for Franklin's Lost expedition loomed especially large and is referred to several times in The Adventures of Captain Hatteras. The novel in turn inspired actual polar travelers, including Fridtjof Nansen and Robert Byrd.

Verne is meticulous in his attention to detail and scientific accuracy (but Science Marches On still applies), especially in the first part, while the second part shows off Verne's rich imagination. As the protagonists proceed into regions at the time not yet discovered, the tone gets more imaginative and fantastical.

The novel was first published in two-weekly installments in the Magasin d'éducation et de récréation in 1864 and 1865 and then released as a two volume novel in 1866. It was Verne's second published novel and was a commercial and critical success. The work is nowadays all but forgotten by the general public, overshadowed by later works like Around the World in Eighty Days and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, though Verne critics still consider it one of his finest works.


The novel displays the following tropes:

  • Anyone Can Die: There are 23 named characters in the novel, including a dog. Only 6 survive, and that includes the dog. Even the titular character would have died, if Verne's publisher Hetzel hadn't prevented it.
  • Artistic License – Biology: When Hatteras and his compatriots are attacked by polar bears, they entrench themselves in their ice house. The polar bears change their tactics try to suffocate them by sealing the entrances with ice blocks. Bears are not intelligent enough to pull of such a trick
  • Asshole Victim:
    • The crew of the Forward minus Bell, Johnson and Clawbonny, who are found dead of either cold or starvation after they abandon their captain and burned the ship to try and reach Canada.
    • Since Hatteras lied to his men, threatened them and refused to acknowledge his mistakes, it is hard to really feel sorry for him when he ends up in an asylum.
  • Bad Boss:
    • First Mate Shandon is described as a very strict and harsh man who refuses to hear the crew's complaints... unless it serves his own purposes.
    • Hatteras as well, who had to hide his identity and the aim of the expedition in order to find a crew, since he got the previous one killed to the last man.
  • Bears Are Bad News: Hatteras and his group of explorers often cross paths with polar bears during their travel and each time they must avoid being hunted and eaten.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Hatteras reaches the North Pole, but at a terrible personal cost. His sanity breaks entirely, and he becomes a silent, wandering figure, lost even as he "wins."
  • Bold Explorer: Partly desconstructed with Hatteras. His obsession with being the first to explore the North Pole proves to be his undoing.
    • Played straight with Altamont, who's in the Arctic to attempt the Northwest Passage. (Although a chapter removed by Verne's editor established that that was a lie and that he also attempted to reach the North Pole, making him a direct competitor to Hatteras.)
  • Boring Return Journey: Partly subverted. Although the return journey covers only one chapter and is uneventful compared to the journey to the Pole, it includes one of the book's most frightening scenes when the protagonists find the corpses of the mutineers with signs of cannibalism.
  • Call-Forward: In a meta way, there is a ship named Nautilus anchored in New Prince's docks at the beginning of the novel, and later Clawbonny mentions that people could try and travel to the Earth's core.
  • Canine Loyalty: Duk is a faithful constant in a world of shifting loyalties and collapsing morale.
  • Canon Welding: With much of Verne's later work.
    • The Fur Country references an incident from Hatteras's expedition, specifically the catching of an old fox previously marked by James Clark Ross's expedition. This shows that both novels take place in the same continuity.
    • In 1882 Verne wrote a play Journey Through The Impossible, in which the protagonist is George Hatteras, a son of Captain Hatteras. The play would connect the novel, directly or indirectly, to numerous more Verne novels.
  • Chromosome Casting: The characters are all male. There's not even any mention of wives or girlfriends at home.
  • Claiming Via Flag: A rather extreme example. Discovering that the actual North Pole is in the crater of a volcano, Hatteras, carrying the Union Jack in his hands, jumps into it.
  • Cold Ham: Hatteras is not physically impressive nor does he raise his voice often, but he still manages to get his crew's obediance (at first), and the complete loyalty of his remaining companions.
  • Cool Boat: The Forward, an icebreaking brig, until it meets its inevitable frozen fate.
  • Crazy-Prepared: For his expedition to the North Pole, Hatteras amassed enough food, powder and other supplies to last six years. There is also enough coal for two years of navigation aboard, which at first seems enough but Hatteras burns through it far too generously, which leaves the ship stranded when the stores he intended to use to resupply are found empty.
  • The Determinator: Hatteras, and how! Even faced with the most rotten odds and the very real possibility of death, he still carries on with his mission, to the point it becomes less determination and more utter madness.
  • Direct Line to the Author: At one point it is remarked that Clawbonny keeps a notebook during the voyage and that the novel is based on it. The English at the North Pole is the name of Clawbonny's published account of the voyage, and it's also the name of the first volume of Verne's novel.
  • Dying Declaration of Hate: Harpooner Simpson tries this against Hatteras, but he's already too weak.
    Simpson was gasping for breath. Suddenly, with a last effort, he half rose, stretched his clinched fist at Hatteras, who was gazing steadily at him, uttered a heart-rending cry, and fell back dead in the midst of his unfinished threat.
  • Famous for Being First: Hatteras, for reaching the North Pole.
  • Foil: The jolly, gregarious, universalist Dr. Clawbonny functions as this for the stern, brooding, nationalist Hatteras.
  • Foreshadowing: At the beginning of the novel, one of the sailors commenting on the Forward and its potential destination states that trying to reach the North Pole would need recruiting a whole crew fit for Bedlam. Cue Hatteras' final fate.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Hatteras achieves his lifelong dream at the cost of his sanity.
  • Hot on His Own Trail: Close to the North Pole, the protagonists find their own footsteps and falsely conclude they are not the first humans at the pole.
    • The exact same mistake was made by Thomson and Thompson in Tintin: Explorers on the Moon, falsely concluding they are not the first men on the moon. Hergé often recycled plot elements from Jules Verne novels.
  • Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Clawbonny is a doctor first and foremost, but he also dabbles in physics, chemistry, meteorology, history, botanics... and gets his companions out of tricky situations several times thanks to his extended knowledge and quick thinking. He's not a bad shot either.
  • I Owe You My Life: Hatteras puts aside his grudge against Altamont after the latter saves his life when he is attacked by a muskox.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Shandon, Pen and the other sailors, regardless of their actions, are right to point out that Hatteras did not consider all the difficulties of sailing to the North Pole, and his reckless use of their steam engine rather than sails cost them too much coal to even think about travelling back home.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The American captain Altamont can come across as brash and arrogant, but he is quick to share his resources with the people who rescued him and saves Hatteras' life twice despite the tensions between them.
  • Kick the Dog: Some sailors can't stand Duk, Hatteras' dog, which he uses to deliver messages to the crew, and at one point try to drown him under the icefield so much the animal spooks them.
  • Meaningful Name: Hatteras named his ship the Forward. And indeed, it never sails back.
    • Inverted, weirdly enough, for Hatteras and Altamont. Haterras is named after Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, Altamont most likely after the Earl of Altamont, an English colonial governor and companion of Lord Byron. The proud Englishman is named after something American, the proud American is named after an Englishman.
  • Moby Schtick: It's not clear if the influence was direct, but more than one critic has remarked the similarities of this novel to Moby-Dick, written more than a decade earlier. Both are naval man vs. nature stories with a The Determinator protagonist whose obsession proves to be his undoing. Just like Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick, the actual protagonist in The Adventures of Captain Hatteras is not introduced until the story is already well underway. An important difference is that Hatteras has no Animal Nemesis, or in fact no nemesis at all. Herman Melville, like Verne, lived near the coast, and both writers' fondness for maritime life is clearly noticeable in their novels.
  • Motor Mouth: Doctor Clawbonny can't seem to shut up and loves showing off his encyclopedic knowledge, drowning his interlocutors in information.
  • Mr. Exposition: Yep, that's Clawbonny again.
  • The Mutiny: Shandon leads one when the Forward is frozen in the ice and Hatteras and Clawbonny are away. They burn the ship down and return southward.
  • No Party Like a Donner Party: It is mentioned several times that explorers stranded up north during winter had to eat their dead colleagues to survive. The heroes stumble upon the remains of their runaway comrades toward the end, and realize from the condition of the corpses that the trope must have taken place with them as well.
  • Polar Madness: At one point or the other, all characters suffer mentally under the unforgiving Arctic conditions. Upon reaching the pole, Hatteras completely loses his sanity. He is diagnozed with 'polar madness' and institutionalized.
  • Recycled Premise: Verne had previously used the device of a ship being stuck for the winter in Arctic ice in A Winter Amid the Ice, written a decade earlier.
  • The Reveal: Not much of a surprise, since he's the titular character after all, but in chapter XII the Forward's captain is finally revealed: John Hatteras. He was on board incognito, passing himself off as a sailor named Garry.
  • Robinsonade: This is one of the many times Verne wrote stories of people being shipwrecked in isolated locations and needing to survive.
  • Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: A major theme of the book. Romanticism is represented by Captain Hatteras, Enlightenment by Dr. Clawbonny. Although the story ends badly for the Romantic, Verne doesn't entirely support either side.
    • Captain Hatteras himself embodies the Romantic ideal: a driven, obsessive hero pursuing a grand, symbolic quest to reach the North Pole at any cost. He is fueled not by reason, but by passion, national pride, and an almost mystical sense of destiny. His determination borders on madness, and he is unreasonable in the litteral sense of the word, even when it endangers the crew.
    • Doctor Clawbonny represents the Enlightenment ideal: rational, optimistic, and guided by empirical knowledge. He is fascinated by the science of the Arctic and constantly explains natural phenomena with cheerful curiosity. While Hatteras seeks glory and transcendence, Clawbonny seeks understanding and survival.
  • Sanity Slippage: Hatteras. When he is introduced, he comes off as obsessive and callous, but still has a clear grasp of reality. Once he actually gets near the Pole he starts to get restless and hard to reason with. Once he finds out there is a volcano on the actual Pole he loses it for good and tries to jump into it. Altamont and Duk save him but he never regains his sanity.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: In order to recruit a full crew, Hatteras promised the men five times the usual pay, and a bonus for each degree of latitude they cross towards the Pole, regardless of the dangers they will have to face. Without it, he would have never found anyone willing to go, as his previous attempt left him as the sole survivor.
  • Science Hero: Doctor Clawbonny frequently uses scientific ingenuity to solve survival problems, from using a lens to start a fire to using frozen mercury from a thermometer as a bullet. As the first of many times Verne wrote a character like this, Clawbonny is arguably the Trope Maker.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Dr. Clawbonny is named after the Clawbonny family from James Fenimore Cooper's Afloat And Ashore. Verne was an admirer of Cooper's work.
    • The five men reaching the open sea in Chapter XX of the second part echoes the most famous passage from Xenophon's Anabasis:
    "The sea! the sea!" they all shouted.
  • Shown Their Work: As usual in a Jules Verne novel, and it's one of its charms. Verne documented his novel extensively, and it includes numerous digressions about Arctic geography, polar explorations and biology. The novel includes accurate descriptions of ice formations, the risks of scurvy, and navigational practices based on real expeditions, notably those of John Franklin, Joseph René Bellot, James Ross and Elisha Kent Kane. Verne even maps out a fictional route to the North Pole that, while fantastical, reflects genuine contemporary theories about open polar seas and magnetic anomalies.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Verne wasn't the optimist he is often made out to be, and this novel is a good example of that. The setting provides ample opportunity to paint a triumphant tale of the human spirit for daring to reach the unreachable. But that's not what Verne does. The characters reach lands previously untouched by any human, which is depicted as something close to a Garden of Eden (the narrator calls it a 'Northern Arcadia'). Hatteras and Altamont end up disturbing the peace, fighting petty nationalist squabbles about who gets to name those new lands. Instead of being redeemed by contact with a pure and untouched world, the explorers import their own dysfunction into it. The novel ends with the polar dream achieved but at a terrible cost: the crew is decimated and Hatteras himself goes mad.
  • Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: Dr. Clawbonny used a lens made of ice to start a fire.
  • Sole Survivor: Hatteras was this on his previous attempt to reach the North Pole.
    • Also Altamont. He's the only man on the Porpoise still alive when Hatteras's expedition finds it.
  • Team Chef: Clawbonny. He's a pretty good one too. Even the sailors are surprised when serves them a deliciously prepared puffin.
  • Third-Party Peacekeeper: Dr. Clawbonny plays this role between Hatteras and Altamont.
  • Tragic Ice Character: Hatteras. His obsession is to reach the North Pole, but he seems to be incapable of making emotional connections to other humans and actually reaching the Pole causes him to lose his sanity.

Alternative Title(s): The English At The North Pole

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