Ms. Found in a Bottle by Edgar Allan Poe

First published: 1833

Type of plot: Adventure

Time of work: The 1800's

Locale: The high seas

Principal Character:

• The unnamed narrator

The Story

The narrator begins his frightening tale with a one-paragraph introduction of himself. Although he does not give his age, he is probably middle-aged, for he has spent many years in foreign travel. Time and "ill usage" have estranged him from both his native country and his family. He has been well educated, especially in the natural sciences, but has been accused of "a deficiency of imagination." He describes himself as a person who cannot be lured from "the severe precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition."

The narrator sets sail on a merchant ship from Batavia, Java, to the Archipelago Islands, for no reason other than a "nervous restlessness" to which he is addicted. For days the ship rides off the coast of Java, waiting for a favorable wind. One evening, he observes strange changes in the sea and the sky: an unusual cloud to the northwest, a red moon, and an extremely hot, spiral atmosphere. He suspects a simoom, but the ship's captain does not share his fears. Soon after, the ship quivers; the sea hurls it on the beam-ends and washes over the decks from stem to stern. Despite the whirling ocean, the ship rights itself. The narrator is saved from being washed overboard by being thrown between the sternpost and the rudder. Only he and an old Swedish sailor, however, survive the storm; everyone else on board is lost, many drowning in their cabins. The two survivors cannot control the ship as it flies for five days in violent winds on a course southeast by south. Cold and darkness envelop the ship, which the narrator believes to be farther south than any previous ship has ever been. He loses hope and prepares himself for the death he considers inevitable.

As the ship is trapped in a maelstrom, a huge vessel of four thousand tons is sighted at the top of the abyss, under full sail, with brass cannon and lighted battle lanterns in the rigging. When the two vessels collide, the narrator is thrown into the rigging of the strange ship. Escaping notice of the crew, he hides at first in the hold. Gradually he beings to explore. The crew, old and infirm, speak a language he cannot understand. The instruments and navigational charts are ancient; the ship itself is very old, but he thinks that it is not a warship. The narrator soon discovers that he is invisible to the crew. He can go anywhere he wishes. From the captain's quarters he takes writing materials, intending to write "this journal," which at the last moment he will put into a bottle and cast into the sea in the hope of communicating his adventure to the world. The ship withstands battering by high seas, which the narrator attributes to its being caught in some strong current or undertow. The crew glide about like "ghosts of buried centuries."

When he observes the captain in his quarters, the narrator discovers him to be quite old and of the same stature as he himself. On the cabin floor are iron-clasped volumes, obsolete charts, and scientific instruments. The captain is poring over a paper, which the narrator takes to be a commission with the signature of a monarch. Like the crew, the captain speaks an unfamiliar tongue and seems to be a ghost from the past.

Meanwhile, the ship continues to endure blasts of wind and ocean beyond belief. Black night and chaotic waters surround it, and huge formations of ice tower on both sides of it. As the narrator thought earlier, the ship is riding in some strange current roaring to the southward. The narrator's sensations and fears are so horrible that he can barely express them. However, his curiosity overrides his despair and will, he says, reconcile him to even a hideous death. He believes that he is rushing to "some exciting knowledge—some never-to-be-imparted secret, whose attainment is destruction." The current, he suspects, is carrying the ship to the South Pole.

In the last journal entry, the narrator notes that the storm is worse than ever and the ship is sometimes "lifted bodily from out the sea!" On the faces of the crew there is hope rather than despair, but the narrator reacts with horror as topless ice opens on each side of the ship and it spins in huge circles. The circles grow smaller; the ship plunges wildly in a whirlpool. He knows that he has little time to contemplate his fate. Then comes his final sentence: "The ship is quivering—oh God! and—going down!"

Bibliography

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