Mariposa

The Mariposa carries Martin Eden toward Tahiti and the South Seas, but the voyage becomes less an escape than a measure of how completely escape has failed him. Once the setting of an eagerly anticipated departure, the steamer turns into a floating world of passengers, routines, and weather that cannot revive his interest in life. Its open porthole finally gives him a way out of his room and into the sea.

Passage and Intended Route

After meeting Joe Dawson, Martin stops at the hotel office to consult the sailing schedule and learns that the Mariposa will leave for Tahiti in five days. He asks the clerk to reserve a stateroom below deck, on the weather side, specifying the port side and telling him to write it down. The precise instruction gives his plans the appearance of purpose, though Martin’s mind is already losing its responsiveness: after arranging the passage, he sleeps deeply, and the prospect of sailing to the South Seas makes no impression on him.

In the days before departure, Joe is occupied organizing and taking hold of the laundry, leaving Martin largely undisturbed. The newspapers announce his passage only on the day before sailing. Martin briefly seeks a doctor’s judgment in a searching physical examination; his heart, lungs, and other organs are found to be normal. The reassurance that his body is in excellent condition sharpens the distinction between physical health and the illness he recognizes in his own mind. By then the trip has ceased to charm him, and even leaving feels like an exertion he would rather have already completed.

Departure and Life Aboard

At sailing time, Martin sees Lizzie Connolly concealed among the crowd on the wharf. He briefly considers taking her with him, imagining how happy she would be, but the impulse changes almost immediately into terror at the prospect. He leaves the rail and retreats to his stateroom until the steamer has cleared the dock. The ship thus separates him not only from the shore but also from the possibility of accepting another person’s attachment or care.

At luncheon he is seated in the place of honor at the captain’s right and discovers that he is regarded as the great man aboard. The public recognition brings him no satisfaction. He spends the afternoon dozing in a deck chair and goes to bed early. After recovering from seasickness on the second day, he watches the other passengers more closely. He recognizes their kindness but finds their conversation and energetic amusements tedious: they play deck-quoits, toss rings, promenade, and hurry to the rail to watch porpoises and flying fish. His judgment of them is qualified by his awareness that he may be unfair, yet the qualification does not make their company less wearisome.

The ship’s ordinary rhythms become burdensome rather than sustaining. Martin takes a magazine to his deck chair but cannot finish it; the printed pages tire him, and the luncheon gong irritates him by requiring him to wake. He seeks out the petty officers’ mess, then leaves. A quartermaster gives him socialist pamphlets and expounds on slave morality, briefly prompting Martin to reconsider his Nietzschean ideas and even the possibility that truth itself may not exist. His attention soon fails, and he returns to dozing. The Mariposa offers movement and company, but neither can hold his interest.

Weather, Weariness, and the Failed Escape

As the steamer enters the northeast trade winds, the wind that once belonged to Martin’s familiar life irritates him. He has his chair moved to escape it. He is also troubled by the practical demands that await him at Tahiti: going ashore, ordering trade goods, and finding a schooner passage to the Marquesas. The journey he had chosen as an escape now appears to require a succession of actions he can scarcely bear to contemplate. He understands the danger of his condition, but the crucial failure is that he is not afraid enough to turn back toward life.

When the Mariposa reaches the doldrums, his inability to sleep removes even the refuge of oblivion. The sticky air and unrefreshing squalls aggravate his discomfort. He alternates between walking the deck and sitting until he must walk again, forces himself to finish the magazine, and tries volumes of poetry from the ship’s library. None holds him for long. After dinner, unable to sleep, he reads a volume of Swinburne in bed and unexpectedly finds a stanza that seems to offer rest through death. The ship’s private interior, meant to shelter him during the crossing, becomes the place where he settles on his way out.

The Porthole and the Sea

Martin turns off the light so it will not betray him and climbs feet first through the open porthole. His shoulders catch; he backs out and tries again with one arm at his side. A roll of the steamer helps him through. Hanging by his hands, he lets go when his feet touch the water. The Mariposa’s side rushes past like a dark wall punctuated by lighted ports, and soon the ship is moving away ahead of him.

In the water, a fish strikes his body, and its sting recalls him to the purpose of his act. Yet he swims confidently, and when he stops, the rising water provokes his hands to move again. The scene makes the Mariposa’s decisive significance sharply paradoxical: it has carried Martin across the ocean, but it cannot carry him beyond his weariness, and the instinct for life persists even as he wills himself toward death. The ship recedes while his body continues to struggle in its wake.