Martin sails for Tahiti aboard the Mariposa

Martin Eden’s voyage aboard the Mariposa begins as an attempted escape to the South Seas and becomes the setting for his deepest estrangement from life. He books passage to Tahiti while believing that distance might cure the disorder in his mind; once at sea, however, he discovers that neither travel nor the surroundings he once loved can restore his desire to live. The voyage’s decisive turn comes not with arrival but aboard ship, when a volume of Swinburne’s poetry offers him a way to end his suffering.

The Passage and Its Intended Escape

Martin makes his travel plans after arranging to meet Joe the following day. At the hotel, he checks the steamer schedule and learns that the Mariposa will sail for Tahiti in five days. He tells the clerk to reserve a stateroom below deck on the weather side, carefully specifying the port side and urging the clerk to write it down. The precise instruction gives practical form to a decision that, emotionally, has little force: that night he sleeps comfortably and without dreams, and the evening’s encounters have scarcely affected him. Even the prospect of sailing to the South Seas, which he loves, means nothing to him. Sleep has become oblivion, while waking brings regret; life feels tedious and time itself an irritation.

In the days before departure, Joe is occupied with taking over the laundry. On the day before sailing, the newspapers announce Martin’s passage, and the news draws a series of farewells. Martin undergoes a thorough medical examination after a passing instinct for self-preservation sends him to a doctor. The examination finds his heart, lungs, and other organs normal; his physique is described as exceptionally strong. The result clarifies rather than relieves his condition. Martin accepts Lizzie Connolly’s diagnosis that his body is sound and that the trouble lies in his “think-machine.” He has treated a journey to the South Seas as the possible remedy, yet, on the verge of leaving, he no longer wants either the destination or the act of travel. Departure appalls him as a physical burden, and he would rather already be aboard and gone than face the effort of setting out.

Farewells and Departure

The last day becomes a succession of obligations. Bernard Higginbotham, Gertrude, and the family come to say goodbye, as do Hermann von Schmidt and Marian. Martin must also settle business and bills and endure reporters. His parting with Lizzie Connolly is abrupt: he says goodbye at the entrance to night school and hurries away. At the hotel, he finds Joe, who has been too busy with the laundry to visit earlier. Though Martin finds the encounter taxing, he grips the arms of his chair and continues talking and listening for half an hour. He reminds Joe that the laundry carries no obligation to remain: Joe can sell it, spend the money, and take to the road whenever he chooses. The counsel offers Joe the freedom Martin himself can no longer experience as a promise.

At sailing time, Martin sees Lizzie Connolly concealed among the crowd on the wharf. For an instant he considers taking her with him, reasoning that she would be happy and that kindness would be easy. The impulse immediately changes into terror. He groans that he is too sick, turns from the rail, and flees to his stateroom, remaining there until the steamer has cleared the dock. The brief temptation is not a renewed courtship or a plan he carries out; it exposes how little capacity he has left to accept another person’s happiness as a responsibility. Even an apparently generous gesture feels unbearable.

The Famous Passenger and the Empty Sea

At luncheon Martin is seated in the place of honor beside the captain and soon understands that he is the great man aboard. The recognition brings no satisfaction. He spends the afternoon in a deck chair with his eyes closed, dozes fitfully, and goes to bed early. After recovering from seasickness on the second day, he encounters the other passengers more fully. He judges them unfairly, he knows, and acknowledges that they are good and kind; nevertheless, their conversation bores him. He associates them with the psychological limitations of the bourgeoisie, while the younger passengers’ loud energy and constant games—deck quoits, ring tossing, promenading, and excited dashes to watch porpoises and flying fish—strike him as exhausting.

The ordinary rhythm of shipboard life offers no counterweight. After breakfast he takes a magazine to his deck chair but cannot finish it; the printed pages tire him, and he dozes until the luncheon gong wakes him, resenting the return to wakefulness. He has occupied the captain’s right hand, yet searches his memory of the forecastle and stoke-hole for the paradise of an earlier life. The contrast yields no refuge: the old world is lost, and the new one has not become a paradise in its place. Martin cannot recover his former working life, but neither can he inhabit the elevated social position that his success has won him.

He makes a further attempt to find interest among the ship’s people by visiting the petty officers’ mess, but is glad to leave. An intelligent quartermaster speaks to him about socialism and hands him leaflets and pamphlets. As the man expounds the idea of slave morality, Martin thinks of his own Nietzschean philosophy and begins to doubt even the possibility of truth. The question quickly exhausts him; he returns to his chair and dozes. Intellectual argument, once central to his life, can no longer hold his attention.

The Doldrums and the Final Turn

The prospect of reaching Tahiti makes the voyage more oppressive. Martin anticipates having to go ashore, order trade goods, arrange passage on a schooner to the Marquesas Islands, and manage the many tasks that follow. When he deliberately considers his situation, he recognizes its peril, but the danger lies partly in his lack of fear: fear might drive him back toward life, whereas his indifference leaves him drifting further into what he calls the Valley of the Shadow. The northeast trade wind, once a familiar companion, irritates him so much that he has his chair moved to escape it. The voyage cannot make the South Seas desirable simply by carrying him there.

When the Mariposa enters the doldrums, even sleep ceases to provide relief. Martin feels saturated with sleep but must remain awake, exposed to what he experiences as the glare of life. Humidity and rain squalls bring no refreshment. He alternates between walking until it hurts and sitting until he must walk again. He forces himself through a magazine and borrows poetry from the steamer’s library, but neither holds his interest for long. After dinner he stays late on deck and still cannot sleep when he goes below. His customary retreat from consciousness has failed.

In bed, under the electric light, Martin looks through a volume of Swinburne and suddenly finds himself reading a stanza with interest. He rereads it, rests the book face downward on his breast, and thinks. The poem supplies what he takes to be the meaning he has been moving toward: rest, understood as an escape from life. He notices the open porthole and judges it large enough. For the first time in weeks he feels happy. The passage ends at this recognition, making the voyage’s apparent destination secondary to its inward course: the ship carries Martin toward Tahiti, but its final, fatal promise is the rest he believes he has found in Swinburne.