Two Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Reading Review Q&A
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
READING RESPONSE #1: CHAPTER 1 - 2
(THE MYSTERIOUS MONSTER & THE HUNT BEGINS)
MARCH 20
QUESTION: Make a prediction about what this book is about
In the first two chapters, the ship Scotia is hit by a mysterious monster. Why mysterious? There is a hole in the shape of a perfect triangle under the ship! This event electrifies all the country around the world, and soon, more and more witnesses are drawn. People think that this monster is very dangerous. Our main character, Pierre Aronnax, an American marine biologist, attends a warship established by the American government, to track down the monster and kill it.
Professor Aronnax meets and becomes friends with Ned, Land, the king of Canadaian harpooners, in the author’s words. They have a few arguments about the existence of the creature. Dr. Aronnax thinks the creature can simply be a narwhal. But Ned refuses to believe the existence of the monster. During the days Dr. Aronnax sends on the ship, he has never seen the creature. On November 2, Commander Farragut makes a promise that if the creature doesn’t appear in three, they will return to America and end the adventure. And then, the monster suddenly appears on the sea surface and has a fight with the warship. Dr. Aronnax falls into the sea.
In these chapters, the author describes people’s personalities and vividly. Everyone in this book is good at different things and their personality traits vary from person to another. The story also has a very interesting plot! It makes people want to read the whole book right after finishing the first chapter. I started to wonder what the monster actually is. I think in the following chapters, Pierre Aronnax will find his way back to the warship and continue his adventure. After a few obstacles for Ned, the bad-tempered Canadian harpooner, will gradually become a good-tempered person. And in the end, Ned and Dr. Aronnax will find the mysterious creature and kill it. He will return to America with glorious victory! But here is the problem: if that’s the main plot of the book, then why is the book called “20,000 leagues under the sea” not “the Wonderful Hunt of Dr. Aronnax”?
READING RESPONSE #2: CHAPTER 3 - 4
(AN IRON PRISON & CAPTAIN NEMO)
MARCH 20
QUESTION: Relate your book to another book, story, song or movie. Explain by providing evidence.
From the third to the fourth chapters, Conseil, the loyal servant, jumps into the sea along with Aronnax to keep him afloat. He saves Aronnax’s life! The three people, Aronnaz, Conseil, and Ned are saved by the people from the creature, a submarine, to be exact. The mysterious creature turns out to be a human-made submarine! Although they can eat and sleep comfortably, they are locked in an “iron prison”. In chapter 4, when a servant from the submarine shows up and gives them food, Ned can not control his temper and beats the servant up! He is very bad-tempered and courageous! Then Captain Nemo shows up and announces that Conseil, Aronnax, and Ned are prisoned forever in the submarine, but they can examine, touch everything in it. He also says that this giant submarine is named “Nautilus”.
I think Ned's personality is very similar to Uncle Quentin, from another book series I read, named The Famous Five. Ned is a very courageous and bad-tempered person. He beats a servant up when the servant goes in their room and serves them food. I think he is actually quite brainless! If Captain Nemo is mad at Ned, Captain Nemo might potentially throw them into the sea and feed them to the sharks, or kill them directly in the submarine. Ned’s emotions control him rather than he controls his emotions. I find this similar to Uncle Quentin because he has an extremely bad temper as well. He is a world-famous scientist. While he is too fascinated with his scientific work, he would yell and scream at the children whenever they are too loud. Differs from Ned, Quentin is not stupid at all. In some books, villains kidnap him just to get his notes. It shows how smart he is.
READING RESPONSE #3: CHAPTER 5 - 6
(THE REMARKABLE NAUTILUS & BENEATH THE PACIFIC OCEAN)
MARCH 23
QUESTION: What character(s) is your favourite? Why? What character(s) do you dislike? Why?
On November 8, 1867, Captain Nemo shows Aronnax around the Nautilus, including his collection of art, books, music, and other priceless treasures from the sea. On the ninth day in the Nautilus, Conseil, and Aronnax are invited to go on a hunt. In chapter six, they actually hunt the wild animals in the sea! On the night of December 11, they see a sad sight, where a sunken ship has lots of victims on it. They are clearly dead. On January 2, the Nautilus entered Torres Strait, they hunted on dry land. But it ends as the savages start to attack them.
My favourite character would be Captain Nemo. Captain Nemo is smart, polite, and warmed-hearted. I feel Aronnax’s perspectives about the submarine have changed. He called Nautilus an “iron Prison” when he first arrives at the submarine. And now he calls the Nautilus “remarkable”. I think Captain Nemo is a legend because he makes Aronnax’s opinion change fastly. Captain Nemo also knows exactly how to control the Nautilus using those precise and complex scientific instruments. Although Ned is disrespectful to him sometimes, he has never been angry with him. He is also warm-hearted because he saved three drowning people onto the Nautilus, despite that they might interrupt his plans. It’ll be wonderful if I can go to the Nautilus and explore the lives under the sea!
READING RESPONSE #4: CHAPTER 7- 8
(STRANGE SECRETS ON BOARD & THE CORAL CEMETERY)
MARCH 27
QUESTION: Describe a character that you would like to meet (which doesn’t mean that you think you would like the character, but that you think the character would be interesting).
In chapter 7 to 8, savages surround the Nautilus and try to get on the Nautilus while Captain Nemo opens the hatch, but they fail due to the hatch is with electricity. The savages yell, scream, and eventually return back to the land. Later on in the story, Captain Nemo puts Dr. Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned into the cell where they spend the first few days in the Nautilus. Dr. Aronnax thinks there are some secrets in the Nautilus. On the next day, Dr. Aronnax examines an injured-man, who will be dead in 2 hours. Captain Nemo cries and buries his shipmate in their own coral cemetery.
The character that I would like to meet is Captain Nemo. Captain Nemo is a careful and thorough person. He always has incredible solutions to any problem. For example, in this chapter, the savages from the land try to break in the Nautilus while the hatch is opened. But they fail because Captain Nemo has charged the hatch with electricity - no one can enter without his permission. This is also an example of his intelligence. Captain Nemo is very mysterious in many ways. He has a shipman injured for an unknown reason. When Dr. Aronnax asks about what causes the injury, Nemo shrieks sharply, “That’s no business of yours! I’m only concerned about his chances.” This makes me wonder who and how the man is injured so badly. In my opinion, Captain Nemo is always strong, if it is otherwise, he wouldn’t be in a submarine away from the whole world! But when his shipmate dies, he cries. I can see that he is extremely emotional, loyal, and caring.
READING RESPONSE #5: CHAPTER 9 - 10
(PEARLS AND SHARKS & AN UNDERSEA TUNNEL)
MARCH 28
Create a “WANTED” poster for the antagonist.
In Chapter 9, the Nautilus is near the Indian Ocean. Captain Nemo invites Aronnax, Ned, and Conseil to a pearl fishery around an island named Ceylon. When they dive deep into the sea, while they collect oysters, they notice a shark attacking an Indian fisher. Captain Nemo tries to save the Indian man and almost gets killed by the shark. Ned saves Captain Nemo at the right time by killing the shark by his extraordinary harpooning skills. In the following chapter, Captain Nemo and Aronnax enter the Arabian Tunnel, which is underground and connects the Red Sea to Mediterranean. At the end of the chapter, they arrive at the Mediterranean successfully.
This is the “WANTED” poster for the shark, the antagonist in these chapters.
READING RESPONSE #6: CHAPTER 11 - 12
(THROUGH THE MEDITERRANEAN & CAPTAIN NEMO’S TREASURE)
APRIL 1
Choose a character and discuss their character traits.
I choose Captain Nemo to discuss his character traits. While the Nautilus is at Mediterranean sea and the Atlantic Ocean, Captain Nemo has his divers ready to collect the countless coins, jewels, and bars of gold and silver from the ocean floor. Later in the chapter, Aronnax realizes that this treasure is not for Captain Nemo himself, it’s for the Cretan on the island of Crete to fight for their freedom against their savage Turkish rulers.
I always thought Captain Nemo is just a billionaire who has a big conflict against all humans so he chooses to live in the Nautilus and spend the rest of his life joyfully, away from the others. But as the story develops, I begin to realize that I was so wrong. Although Captain Nemo lives away from the continents, he always cares about all the poor people all around the world. He orders his divers to collect the endless wealth from the bottom of the sea and gives them to the people who need them. In this case, they are Cretan. Captain Nemo must have done this many times. I can see that he is big-hearted, generous, and caring.
Other positive personality traits I discovered before include smart and loyal. He must be smart to create a submarine that is centuries advanced than the technologies on land; he must be loyal to have a coral cemetery for all the shipmates who tragically died for him.
None of us is perfect, so is Captain Nemo. He also has some bad qualities. He is highly emotional. On page 166, chapter 12, Nemo said “do you think I use this wealth for myself, Professor? What makes you think I don’t make good of it? Don’t you think I know people are suffering on earth, poor people to be helped, victims to be avenged, don’t you think I...” Captain Nemo snaps angrily just because Dr. Aronnax misunderstands him. I think he is emotional.
READING RESPONSE #7: CHAPTER 13 - 14
(A LOST CONTINENT & THE SOUTH POLE)
APRIL 10
QUESTION: Identify one particular quote that catches your interest and explain why it is significant to you.
In these two chapters, Captain Nemo leads the Nautilus to hunt the sperm whales. The battle rages for hours. And then the Nautilus heads south to the south pole and arrives at the Great Ice Barrier, which is a chain of ice mountains whose sharp peaks rose like thin needles three hundred feet into the air! The Great Ice Barrier is the obstacle that no ship had ever been able to get through. Captain Nemo dives under the ice and arrives at the South Pole. He plants a flag which says “Nautilus” on the ice.
In chapter 14, the South Pole, page 182, when Aronnax thinks that they are trapped around the icebergs, Captain Nemo says “You always worry. Not only will the Nautilus free herself, but she will continue on and take us to the South Pole. We shall discover the Pole together. Where others have failed, I, Captain Nemo, shall succeed!”
From this particular quote, I can see a whole new perspective of Captain Nemo. He is fierce and arrogant. He doesn’t want to apply any good to human society, instead, he uses his wisdom to build a ship that is used to go beyond human technology. He also thinks he is a special existence among all creatures on the Earth. Why? He claims that sperm whales are “cruel and destructive” on page 178. He starts a savage hunting of the sperm whales which lasts for hours and the sea is dyed in blood. I know that every creature exits for a reason on Earth, destroying any of them blindly can result in the inequivalent ecosystem. He’s arrogance causes hundreds of sperm whales to die. If he doesn’t stop being arrogant, eventually, someone or something will teach him a lesson.
READING RESPONSE #8: CHAPTER 15 - 18
(TRAPPED BENEATH THE ICE, THE ATTACK OF THE SQUID, CAPTAIN NEMO’S REVENGE & ESCAPE!)
APRIL 15
QUESTION: Explain three reading strategies that you have used in this novel.
In chapter 15, after starting to leave the South Pole, the Nautilus is trapped in the water under the thick icebergs. Ned and other workers offer help to crack the ice by hand. At that point of time, they need five nights and four days to go back to the open air, but the Nautilus only have two days of air in the reservoirs! Everyone on the Nautilus try to breathe as little as possible. Captain Nemo is able to work under pressure: he is exhausted but he can still think, plan, and act. When the ice has only a few feets to crack, he decides to crack the ice. In the end of the chapter, they succeed!
After escaping from the South Pole, the Nautilus is again in danger in chapter 16. It is trapped with some giant squids that are twenty-five feet long. One of the squids’ beak is in the propeller and the Nautilus can’t move at all. The people in the Nautilus have to fight with the squids by hand to hand using an axe. One of the squids brings a worker to the deep sea and disappears. Captain Nemo cries.
In chapter 17, Captain Nemo kills all the people from the Abraham Lincoln warship to get revenge. The Nautilus hits the ship, Aronnax watches it as it sinks slowly down into the deep and unpredictable sea.
After Captain Nemo denies that Aronnax, Ned and Conseil can leave the submarine, the three men decide it’s time to escape. Ned invites Aronnax to meet at the dinghy to escape. In the meantime, the Nautilus is caught in a maelstrom. Aronnax hits his head on the wall and loses consciousness when the submarine shakes heavily. When he wakes up, he, aronnax, and Conseil are in a fisherman’s cottage. They have escaped successfully!
The three strategies that I have used throughout this book are: In case I forget, (I named this one!) visualizing, and retelling. When I do “in case I forget”, I write down some bullet points about the content of the chapter as I read them the first time. I need to make sure that my bullet points are accurate, short, and understandable. When I start to write the response entrance for the chapters I read, which might be a few days after, I turn the bullet points into paragraphs and sometime I add a few more. This is how I read and write my journal effectively.
I also used visualization in this book. 20, 000 Leagues Under the Sea:this book is science fiction, a perfect combination of scientifics and fantasy. There are many things in this book that I have never seen before, for example, giant squids from chapter 16, an underwater cemetery made of coral in chapter 8, Arabian tunnel that is under a complete continent in chapter 11, and the list goes on and on. This is the time when I use my imagination to visualize. Visualizing also helps me to recall the content. When I look at my notes, the image appears in my head. This is also how I can read and write separately very effectively.
The last type of reading strategies I used is retelling. This is what I use when I extend my notes into paragraphs. This is retell because most of them are in my own words. Besides the required school curriculum, I also retell the fascinating stories in my own words to my mom and she seems very interested. I bet my description about the book is more interesting than actually reading it!
Here is where I attach my notes from the strategy number one “In case I forget”.
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