The Sea-Wolf

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1904

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Chapters 34-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 34 Summary

Maud and Humphrey decide to repair the Ghost’s masts so that they can sail away from Endeavor Island in search of rescue. Though Humphrey has no formal training, he remembers things the sailors did aboard the Ghost and is able to cobble together a repair plan. Maud helps in small ways, but she largely provides Humphrey with motivation, enthusiasm, and encouragement, all of which deepen Humphrey’s love for her.

Humphrey boards the Ghost and begins hammering in the hold; the sound draws Larsen’s attention. Though blind, Larsen surmises that Humphrey is trying to repair the ship and forbids him from doing so. Emboldened by Larsen’s physical weakness, Humphrey banters with him, throwing Larsen’s old philosophical ideas back at him: “You advance the fact that it is your ship as though it were a moral right. You have never considered moral rights in your dealing with others” (250). Larsen responds that he intends to die there, on the Ghost marooned on Endeavor Island. Humphrey responds, “Well, we don’t” (251) and resumes the repairs.

Chapter 35 Summary

Through a system of self-constructed levers known as a windlass, Humphrey and Maud manage to get the topmasts aboard the Ghost and begin working. Through trial and error, Humphrey claims that “I was learning, I was learning” (253). Though their progress is slow, they are managing, with Wolf Larsen silently and blindly keeping them company on deck. Before going back to their huts for the night, Humphrey and Maud both congratulate each other for their hard work and tease each other for their changed appearances; Humphrey begins to wonder if Maud shares his love, noting a “serious something underneath the fun” (254).

The next morning, Maud and Humphrey wake to discover that Larsen has sabotaged the repair by undoing all the work they’d accomplished and casting the masts off into the sea. Humphrey is enraged: “He deserves to die [...] and God forgive me, I am not man enough to be his executioner” (256). Rather than giving Larsen the satisfaction of knowing their disappointment, Maud and Humphrey make no sound on deck and leave without speaking to Larsen.

Chapter 36 Summary

Humphrey and Maud spend two days rowing around Endeavor Island in search of their lost masts. They find them in an area of rocky shore and rough surf but manage to collect the pieces and drag them behind their small boat. The weather and wind begin to turn bad, and with the weight of their cargo dredging in the water behind them, their boat is pulled out to sea. They argue, with Humphrey in favor of cutting their losses and returning to shore without the masts, while Maud insists they keep them as they “may remain for years on the island” (258) if not for life. Humphrey eventually gives in, and the two spend a cold, painful night on the open water.

When day breaks, Humphrey is dismayed to find that they are 15 miles from shore. However, the wind is favorable, and once they begin to warm themselves up, the two make it back to shore. They immediately collapse in their huts. The next day, they rest, mostly talking. Maud shares a portion of her backstory: She was travelling to Japan to improve her weak health. Their discussion turns to Larsen’s blindness and illness, with Humphrey noting that “Maud’s sympathy went out to him more and more” (261).

The pair resume their work, and Humphrey sleeps on the deck of the Ghost to stop Larsen from any more tricks. Indeed, Larsen sneaks onto the deck in the middle of the night with a knife, but Humphrey notices and stops him before he can do damage. Maud proposes that they make Larsen a prisoner. Neither feels comfortable knocking Larsen out with one of the seal clubs in order to tie him up, so they wait for an opportunity to present itself.

While Humphrey is working, Larsen comes on deck, seemingly in the throes of a headache. He collapses on the deck, and Maud and Humphrey strive to make him comfortable. It is when Humphrey checks his pulse that Larsen reveals he was faking; he lashes out and grabs Humphrey around the throat. Though Larsen is ill, his strength is formidable. He slowly chokes Humphrey as Maud runs to find a weapon. Before she needs to harm him, however, Larsen’s headache truly comes on, and he collapses in pain. Maud and Humphrey embrace before handcuffing Larsen into one of the steerage bunks.

Chapters 34-36 Analysis

As the relationship deepens between Maud and Humphrey, Humphrey begins to wonder if Maud returns his love. Maud seems to be suggesting, gently with her eyes, that she loves Humphrey as much as he loves her, but neither risks their precarious position by declaring love. Humphrey puts much of his self-confidence in her charge: “I loved her and that because of her the strength was mine to win our way back to the world” (257). Maud is not ignorant of her influence on Humphrey, often utilizing the short phrase “Please, please,” at the right moments because she knows it is nearly impossible for Humphrey to deny her anything after he hears those words. She knows that he is in love with her and is perhaps waiting until they are off the island to acknowledge this. As members of a society and social class that strictly enforces codes of propriety, both characters acknowledge the strange intimacy of their circumstances as being far outside their comfort zone. To wait for love until back in society is important to Humphrey’s idea of masculinity as well as to Maud’s idea of her role as a woman.

Maud herself has not withstood these trials without being influenced. Though Humphrey’s narrative paints her idealistically as the never-changing and always good woman, she is nevertheless quite willing to club Larsen over the head when he makes a last attempt at Humphrey’s life. Humphrey cries out with gratitude that in that moment she was “forgetful of her culture” (265), one that demanded meekness, compassion, and fragility as a matter of course amongst women. She was travelling to Japan to improve her health but has also benefited from Larsen’s influence just as Humphrey has, and this underscores the need for a balance between classes, knowledge sets, and practical applications. Maud would never have had the strength to help Humphrey repair the Ghost, much less the emotional fortitude to defend him against Larsen’s attack, if Larsen had not detained her aboard the Ghost in the first place.