The Characters of the Journey to the Center of the Earth

Name:侯亚楠

Student number:2010710418

Title: Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Author: Jules Verne

Pages: 410

Genre: science fiction

In the Journey to the Center of the Earth the author narrated such a

adventurous story to us: Professor Von Hardwigg occasionally got a small

scarp of parchment from a yellow-leaved book, and found that their predecessor

had had a journey to the center of the Earth .So Professor Von Hardwigg determined

to follow their predecessor’s step.

He and his nephew Harry started from Hamburg, and went to Iceland where

they would meet a guider –Hans who would experience adventures in the center

of the Earth with them. With the predecessors’ guidance, they descent into

Sneffels’s crater in Iceland. During their journey, they experienced all

kinds of hardships and perils, and saw a variety of marvelous spectacles.

They have lost their way, lacked water, and even been attacked by

Prehistoric creatures and something thrilling. Meanwhile, they also attained many

supernormal discoveries, such as The Central Sea, Prehistoric human skeleton and

so on. After 3- month’s journey, they finally went back to the surface of the Earth.

Jules Verne is not only a warrior who always adheres to the scientific

truth, but also a literal master who excels in portraying personages. There

are just 3 main characters (Professor Von Hardwigg, his nephew Harry and

their guider Hans) in the Journey to the Centre of the Earth, all of them

are vivid and have bright personalities.

“I” in this book is the Professor Von Hardwing’s nephew ,he is smart

and caring, also, has quick-wit. When he ran across difficulties, he could

faced them bravely. However, at first, he was just a 19-year-old boy with

no decision .But under the pressure from his uncle, he had to leave his warm

home in Hamburg and muddled along starting on his adventurous journey into

the centre of the Earth. At that time , he was just a rebellious hero .What

he thought all day was nothing in addition to eating and sleeping, much less

dedicating himself to the truth and glory. He was not able to control his

destiny whereas as the blind fish in primitive ocean of chapter 32 swimming

with the water. Yet, after a chain of tests ,for instance, giddy,

hunger ,thirsty, darkness ,labyrinthus ,heat, etc. he gradually grew up.

And from initial always submitting to his uncle to discussing problems

equally with his uncle. At last, he dared to issue commands towards his

uncle .This kind of change contained a typical simple: although , the 3 heroes

finally didn’t arrive in the centre of the Earth ,Jules has already attained

his point: the whole procedure of adventuring the centre of the Earth was

the procedure of becoming a man after experiencing hardship and obtaining

new life.

Professor Von Hardwing is a careful and adventurous German scientist.

He was never afraid of difficulties and hardship in terms of his research.

He was an energetic and quick-tempered person. However, Jules took

advantage of this man’s personalities, scientific aptitude and status to

complete the boring prolixity of natural scientific principles. If we

could say that at the start of the journey, Harry was just a kid ,professor

Von Hardwing had been the scientific authority. Because of his absolute and

brash dispositions ,he became a proper leader of this trio. we could even

thregard him as the scientism comic sample of the 19 century. But he did

have attic faith and strong will with his funny stubborn .He believed scientice as well as numbers even though he could made some sleazy and foolish mistakes. Most of humorous elements in the novel was from this man’s bright personalities. So ,on the other hand, Von Hardwing ,this kind of person can make a serious scientific imaging theme become more relaxing, active, interesting,and vivider

Hans, a guider from Iceland, is totally different from Professor Von Hardwing .He is calm and peaceable and pays no attention to anything. Even his words are so succinct. But he is confident, fervent and helpful .The motivation of his joining this exploration had no common with his companions .Suppose that the purpose of the latter adventuring this action was only knowledge whereas the former, Hans, was just for a living. Because of this reason, even though they were trapped in a very dangerous situation, Hans would stick to asking for his 3 dollars weekly salary. Yet, thanks to this person’ appearance, Jules could easily solve all the technical problems during the journey.

In addition, there was another person in the story even though he had never appeared formally .He was the first person who had got to the centre of the Earth and succeeded in returning to the surface of the Earth---Arne Saknussemm, not only an Icelandic name, but of a learned professor of the sixteenth century, a celebrated alchemist. The description of this man was indirect and not long, but it was this person that always played an important role of guiding our heroes’ adventure, pushing the key plot and grapping the rhythm of the novel.

While Jules created those characters who were brave scientific warriors and pioneers, himself was recognized as the pioneer of science fiction novel.

 

第二篇：Welcome to the lab of rare earth