The Battle with Sperm Whales

The Battle with Sperm Whales occurs on March 14, while the Nautilus is cruising in the southern Atlantic Ocean. The event is a direct consequence of Captain Nemo's refusal to allow Ned Land to hunt the baleen whales for sport, a prohibition that stems from Nemo's belief that such hunting is a "reprehensible offense" that has already depopulated Baffin Bay and will wipe out a whole class of useful animals. Instead, Nemo points out that the baleen whales have enough natural enemies without counting man, specifically a herd of sperm whales eight miles to leeward, which he describes as "dreadful animals" that are "cruel, destructive beasts" deserving of extermination.

The Massacre

Captain Nemo takes command of the Nautilus himself, operating his submersible as an engine of destruction. The Nautilus proceeds to midwater, and Nemo maneuvers it to cut into the herd of long-skulled predators. The battle is a one-sided slaughter: the Nautilus, brandished in its captain's hands, becomes a fearsome harpoon that runs the sperm whales clean through, leaving behind two squirming animal halves. The ship is untroubled by the daunting strokes of the whales' tails or the collisions it causes. It exterminates one sperm whale, then runs at another, tacking on the spot, obeying its rudder, diving when the cetacean sinks to deeper strata, rising with it when it returns to the surface, striking it head-on or slantwise, hacking at it or tearing it, skewering it with its dreadful spur from every direction and at any speed. The struggle lasts for an hour, with the long-skulled predators unable to get away. Several times ten or twelve of them team up, trying to crush the Nautilus with their sheer mass, but the submersible carries them off, drags them under, or brings them back to the upper level of the waters, untroubled by their enormous weight or powerful grip.

The Aftermath

When the Nautilus rises to the surface, the sea is covered with mutilated corpses. The waves are dyed red over an area of several miles, and the Nautilus floats in the middle of a sea of blood. A few frightened sperm whales are fleeing toward the horizon. Ned Land, whose enthusiasm for the hunt had initially been aroused, is subdued, calling the spectacle "plain butchery" and stating his preference for his harpoon. Captain Nemo replies, "It was a slaughter of destructive animals, and the Nautilus is no butcher knife." The Nautilus then pulls alongside a dead southern right whale, its belly riddled with bites, still hanging from the tip of its mutilated fin a little baby whale that it had been unable to rescue. Two of Nemo's men climb onto the whale's flank and draw from its udders all the milk they hold, enough to fill two or three casks, which Nemo offers to the professor as a worthwhile reserve ration.

Narrative Role and Significance

This event serves as a crucial turning point in the novel, deepening the mystery of Captain Nemo's character and foreshadowing his later, far more terrible act of vengeance. The massacre of the sperm whales is a display of Nemo's power and his willingness to act as judge, jury, and executioner in the natural world, a role he will later assume against human oppressors. It also exacerbates the tension between Nemo and Ned Land, as the Canadian's hunting instincts are thwarted and his resentment grows. The event is a stark demonstration of the Nautilus's capabilities as a weapon of mass destruction, a preview of the "dreadful engine" that will later be used to sink a warship. The contrast between Nemo's refusal to allow sport hunting and his own wholesale slaughter of the sperm whales highlights the contradictions in his moral code, a code that is based on his own personal sense of justice and vengeance rather than any universal principle.