Statements about Jules Verne and racism in The Mysterious Island that need to be challenged.

[John Lamb]

Dear all,

Re Verne’s The Mysterious Island.

 A thorny issue this one but as we approach 2028 and celebrate Jules Verne’s bicentenary, this one about 'his racism' definitely needs ‘putting to bed’ as totally false.  i.e. exposed as the total opposite of what Verne really meant. 

“What should not be glossed over is the systematic racism of the novel. Verne’s and the settlers’ prejudice is blind and unrelenting, in common with much of their century. While sympathetic, Neb the Black is described in terms of his distinctive physical appearance, but also behaviour (close to animals, lack of intelligence and perseverance etc). Indeed, unfavourable comparisons are made with Top the dog and Jup the orang-utan”.

(William Butcher The Mysterious Island Introduction (2001).

 Everything about this passage is wrong. Verne is in fact exposing the well meaning and likeable colonists of this ‘Mini America’ as still operating a ‘slave economy’, that is the simple point…no racism at all, it is just an economy based on hierarchies ‘minus one’…unpalatable but true, relating back via two totally separate avenues to Edgar Allan Poe.

Verne  meant all this as a 'piss take' on Poe's  racist characterization  of the imbecilic / pacified  freed slave Jup (Jupiter) in his hero, Edgar Allan Poe's novel 'The Gold Bug' and the also the racist connotations of orangutangs of 'Murder in the Rue Morgue'....simple really.

Uncomfortable stuff, but let us not take our hero down when he does not deserved it when judged by people who do not 'get' irony and satire. 

Comments appreciated.

 Best John

[John Lamb]

Let me elaborate.

 

The nature of Jup’s capture after the wholesale slaughter of his family is at odds with the otherwise likeable nature of the colonists throughout the novel and is symbolic of the wider issues involved in the Transatlantic slave trade. For every African enslaved there was an untold story of death and suffering either upon capture or during the ‘Middle Passage’ on slave ships as captured Africans travelled across the Atlantic to what Frederick Douglass satirised as the ‘Land of the Free'.

Jules Verne’s written description of Jup as a large fellow, six feet tall is totally at odds with the image drawn by his own artist Jules Ferat, who, makes Jup the size of a small child. Given that Jules Ferat was one of France’s top illustrators this can only be intentional. Verne’s literal description is instead that of a newly captured African slave being prepared for auction at the slave market.

The one that was tied up in the large hall of Granite House was a large fellow, six feet tall, with an admirably proportioned body, a large chest, a head of average size, a facial angle of sixty five degrees, a rounded cranium, a prominent nose, a skin covered with a sleek, gentle and glossy coat – in short a well developed type of anthropomorph. Jules Verne. The Mysterious Island. (1874)

This is not racism but satire on the views of the time.                          

The glossy coat analogy (where very importantly  Ferat’s illustration is again the total opposite showing a purposely disheveled and scraggy Jup) is particularly critical and satirical of the profiteering slave markets after the horrors of the ‘Middle Passage’.

On arrival in the Americas the enslaved Africans were prepared for sale like animals. They were washed and shaved, sometimes their skin was oiled to make them appear healthy and increase their sale price.   International Slavery Museum Liverpool.

Jup has been captured by the colonists of Mysterious Island and after the indiscriminate slaughter of his whole family troop, he is soon put to work for no pay, in other words, he is made a slave, creating yet another slave society. That is why he had to die at the end of the novel (the only colonist to do so) as he represents the death of slavery.  Pencroft, the otherwise likeable Unionist sailor, chooses a name for the orangutan.

 As to his name, the sailor asked that he be called Jupiter or Jup for short, in memory of another ape he had known.  Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (1875)

The choice of the name Jupiter shortened to Jup by Jules Verne, also has specific resonance to the racism shown by one of Jules Verne’s own literary heroes. In the 19^th century, many racist attitudes were perpetuated in popular fiction, and it appears that Verne here is sparing no one and taking a side swipe at one of his favourite authors Edgar Allen Poe (1809-49) and his 1843 novel The Gold Bug. The Gold Bug has been widely criticised for its racist portrayal of African Americans as comic imbeciles with heavily stereotypical accents and being passive to their own treatment, even after being ‘emancipated’.                                                                                

Here is one example from Poe’s ‘Gold Bug’

In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter ….

…..conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect….

…..“Well, Jup,” said I, “what is the matter now?—how is your master?”

“Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as mought be.” 

“Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain of?” 

“Dar! dat’s it!—him neber ’plain of notin’—but him berry sick for all dat.” 

“Very sick, Jupiter!—why didn’t you say so at once? Is he confined to bed?” 

“No, dat he aint!—he aint ’fin’d nowhar—dat’s just whar de shoe pinch—my mind is got to be berry hebby ’bout poor Massa Will.” 

“Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking about.                                                                           

  The Gold Bug by Edgar Allen Poe (1843)   

 

…and here is Frederick Douglass’s response to such passages.  

There are malicious American writers who take pleasure in assailing us, as an inferior and good for nothing race of which it is impossible to make anything. Frederick Douglass Hotel Britanique, Paris. November 19^th 1887.

 

 Poe’s characterisation of Jupiter’s speaking style is in total contrast to that of Verne’s totally respectful characterisation of Neb in Mysterious Island as a total equal in the Mysterious Island as portrayed by several of Ferat’s ‘camaraderie’ illustrations of Neb and Pencroft together (something that also transferred to the 1961 film).  For example.

 

“Come, Pencroft,” said Neb, “don’t make yourself out so bad as all that! Suppose one of these unfortunate men were here before you, within good range of your guns, you will not fire?”

 

So Verne here is simply reiterating and supporting what Frederick Douglass said. I reiterate there is no racism by Verne in The Mysterious Island – he is simply calling out racism in the spirit of both Frederick Douglass and Victor Hugo and satirising the racial hierarchies at the time. So hopefully, as I said earlier the allegations of racism in The Mysterious Island can be firmly put to bed as such allegations where they do not exist in reality have to be dealt with. I understand this is an uncomfortable topic but Verne is being satirical here and it is lost on some...to the author's detriment. I am not putting Verne on a pedestal here as I am fully aware of 'Off on a Comet' which I think is tainting a rational view of The Mysterious Island. 

While I am on this topic, Verne's reference to 'Lord Seaforth' in the Adventures of Captain Hatteras, listed as 'not known' by WB is in fact a reference to Liverpool's John Gladstone (father of William Ewart Gladstone) who lived at Seaforth Hall opposite 'The Point of Birkenhead' referred to by Verne in the novel. Gladstone received the biggest pay out of any slave owner in the British Empire when compensation was handed out in 1833. 

Yet another point made by Verne in his long lists. 

John

[Don Sample]

I wouldn’t go putting Verne on a pedestal. Many of his descriptions of non-European people in his books are extremely cringeworthy. In The Children of Captain Grant he repeatedly compares Australian Aborigines unfavourably with monkeys, ending the main interaction with them with

“Do you know what the negroes say about that interesting race, the orangutans?”

“What do they claim?”

“They declare,” replied the Major, “that the monkeys are blacks like themselves, but more clever. ‘He no speak because he no want to work,’ said a negro of a tame orangutan that his master kept as a pet.”

Verne like that joke so much he reused it in The Mysterious Island.

On Mar 31, 2026, at 12:54 AM, John Lamb <cads...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[John Lamb]

I think in The Mysterious Island  (I take it you are referring to p275 in the Kravitz translation)  there may be an element of dramatic irony by Verne.

I think the whole novel needs to be seen in the context of satirising the American Civil War background and racial hierarchies of the south rather than Verne repeating them.  WB is of course correct in saying a 'whole Chain of Beings is in fact in evidence' with Jup now at the bottom. ...allowing satire...in a roman a clef style   The colonists, although well meaning, have inadvertently created a 'slave society' in the little new America, Verne just adds a new loop to the chain, which is why Jup had to die at the end. 

 The satirisation of Edgar Allan Poe's Gold Bug is crucial here (am I the first to identify this link?)   WB makes a connection between Jupiter and the Roman Gods and the name Jup being a homonym of "jupe" skirt (p646 of Kravitz translation). Given Verne's admiration for Poe and Poe's use of the both the names Jupiter and Jup in The Gold Bug surely this is the better derivation and thus leads to a better explanation of the perceived 'systematic racism' in the novel. Re Ned, I disagree with WB that his depiction is full of 'unfavourable comparisons' with Top the dog and Jup the orangutan, this is also (very occasional) satire on Verne's part. I would look at the dozens of passages which praise Ned as an equal to any of the colonists.  I also think the praise of the 'righteous north' in the American Civil War (and by insinuation the destruction of slavery) by Verne which runs right through the novel is pertinent to this explanation. Perhaps also linking to later Dick Sand and Verne's opinion of slavery?

One final point is the illustration on p568 of Spillet with his arm on Ned's shoulder in a lovely piece of multiracial camaraderie. ..again symbolic of a new America on 'Lincoln Island'. 

How many mid 19th century novels showed such a scene? Very few I bet, and it is when Verne does something this unusual that we learn so much about the writer (almost like a criminal psychologist analysing the unique criminal traits of a suspect and learning a lot more about their psyche in one go).

If this illustration is indeed 'groundbreaking' (and I am no expert on 19th century literature but I know some on this forum are) then I do not think the description of the novel as being full of 'systematic racism' is still tenable. I appreciate the context of other Verne novels can give us an insight though. 

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