The Sea-Wolf

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1904

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Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 4 Summary

In his new position as cabin boy, Humphrey spends more time with Mugridge. Mugridge instructs Humphrey in cooking for the crew, but because Humphrey has never done such work before, Mugridge begins to criticize, tease, and order Humphrey about. Humphrey develops a hatred for Mugridge. As Humphrey prepares to serve dinner in the cabin, a “howling sou’easter” (29) begins. While bringing the teapot and some bread from the galley to the cabin, a large storm wave crests over the side of Ghost. Larsen calls out, “Grab hold something, you—you Hump!” (30). The nickname sticks.

Humphrey is unable to hold onto something in time and is pummeled by a wave. He hits his knee, which immediately becomes injured and raised on one side. Despite his injury, Humphrey is expected to wait on the cabin table, which includes Larsen, Johansen, and the hunters. Larsen notes that Humphrey is in pain and tells him the pain will be good for him, before asking if Humphrey is interested in literature. Larsen plans to talk with him more about the subject.

Humphrey is temporarily allowed a bunk in the hunter’s steerage. His painful injury keeps him from sleep, so he listens to the hunters. To him, they are “callous” (32), both to himself and to each other; Humphrey claims they are “less sensitively organized” (32) and later of low “mental caliber” (33) after he hears an argument between two of the hunters over seal pups. A sleepless Humphrey reflects on the extreme unlikeliness that a gentleman such as himself could have found his way into such a situation, that his mother and sisters must be worried—if not grieving—for him, and he remembers how his friend Charley Furuseth said goodbye in Sausalito.

Chapter 5 Summary

At five-thirty the next morning, Humphrey is woken by Mugridge to prepare breakfast. His knee has not improved. Humphrey changes out of the clothes he was given by Mugridge and into his own, finding that the $185 in his purse was stolen. When he confronts Mugridge, Mugridge is insulted, yelling, “If you think I’m a thief, just keep it to yerself” (36). He then moves to attack Humphrey, but Humphrey flees from the galley, marveling, “Force, nothing but force, obtained on this brute-ship. Moral suasion was a thing unknown” (36). Mugridge mocks his limp as he retreats.

With the storm having broken overnight, the Ghost is on course to ride the winds down into the tropics before proceeding north to Japan. Humphrey cleans up after breakfast and takes the ashes of the stove up onto the deck for disposal. Unfamiliar with the winds, he throws the ashes over the wrong side of the boat; the wind picks them up and sprays them over the deck, as well as over Larsen and the hunter Henderson. Immediately, Larsen kicks Humphrey for punishment.

Later that same day, Humphrey is sent to clean the captain’s cabin. He finds books of literature, biology, and grammar, as well as schematics that Larsen has been working on. Humphrey is unable to reconcile Larsen’s violence with his intellectual pursuits: “At once he became an enigma” (38). Humphrey seeks out Larsen to tell him of the theft of his money, and Larsen’s response is to regard it as a lesson not to leave his belongings—especially money—unattended; it was Mugridge’s prerogative to steal the money if Humphrey was going to tempt him by leaving it out.

Humphrey and Larsen then begin a conversation about the nature of an immortal soul; Humphrey believes in the soul’s immortality, while Larsen is skeptical. Humphrey is astonished at Larsen’s intelligence. Larsen, who is able to match Humphrey’s philosophical claims with formidable (if less poetic) intellectual scrutiny, asks several times for the reason behind an immortal soul or a reason for any of the actions they take: “But if we are immortal, what is the reason for this?” (41). Larsen claims that there is no real reason for keeping Humphrey on the Ghost other than a whim, and Humphrey replies that he enacts this whim through his physical strength. Larsen, however, insists that it is just the way of life, that people are inevitably moved by their natures.

Johansen is promoted to sleeping in the hunter’s steerage the next day, and Humphrey relegated to the cabin stateroom.

Chapter 6 Summary

The men are on deck preparing the boats for hunting. In speaking to the sailor Johnson and overhearing Henderson’s conversation with another hunter, Humphrey pieces together tales of Wolf Larsen’s character: Larsen is allegedly violent, heartless, reckless, and murderous; several men have died under his command.

Humphrey remarks that most of the crew has “an excuse for having sailed on the Ghost” (43), including being drunk at the time of signing or not knowing about Larsen’s character. Humphrey gossips with Louis, one of the crew, and learns more about Larsen’s reputation. Louis says of Larsen: “[N]o heart he has at all. Wolf, just wolf” (45) and that Humphrey can expect more men on the crew to die before their journey’s end. They hypothesize that there will soon be conflict between Larsen and the idealistic sailor, Johnson.

In order to right one of the sails that has gotten caught, the sailor Harrison climbs the peak halyards. This is Harrison’s first voyage on a ship, and his fear is evident; nevertheless, Larsen orders him to complete the task. The hunter Standish argues against this, as Harrison is his boat puller for hunts. Larsen overrides him and sends Harrison up. Once the task is completed, however, Harrison completely loses his nerve and cannot descend. He remains in place, in terror for several hours, after Humphrey goes through his assigned cooking and table duties. Before the evening is over, Larsen and Humphrey discuss the value of life and its relation to the seeming heartlessness of nature. Larsen insists that life holds value only for each separate individual but that it is worthless in the grand scheme of nature.

Chapters 4-6 Analysis

Humphrey, as the narrator, is positioned in the future relating past events. This allows London to utilize seafaring terms that Humphrey may learn later but can use in his narration to explain events more clearly. Additionally, Humphrey’s use of niche seafaring language foreshadows his extended stay aboard the Ghost, as well as the trajectory of his character development.

Violence and the codes of seafaring life become common threads of confusion and surprise for Humphrey. Aboard the Ghost, Strength and force of will prevail over reason or compassion. When sleeping in the hunter’s steerage on his first night aboard, Humphrey listens to an argument between Kerfoot and Latimer, and he remarks that their reasoning was poor and their passion inflammatory. When Mugridge accidentally wakes one of the hunters the next morning, the hunter viciously throws their shoe at Mugridge’s ear. Humphrey observes that “Force, nothing but force, obtained on this brute-ship. Moral suasion was a thing unknown” (36), a far cry from his familiar gentlemanly propriety.

In addition to the hunter’s violence, Humphrey suggests the weakness of their reasoning indicates low intelligence: “I have related this in order to show the mental caliber of the men with whom I was thrown in contact. Intellectually they were children, inhabiting the physical forms of men” (33). The scale by which Humphrey measures people is based on the education and literature he himself enjoyed as a member of the middle class.

Humphrey’s own, deconditioned body underscores the disparity between him and the more physically-oriented men suddenly surrounding him: He has little strength and struggles with the grueling physical labor as the Ghost’s new cabin boy. Already suffering with fatigue and injury when Larsen kicks him as punishment for incorrectly disposing of ashes, Humphrey remarks, “I shall be able to appreciate the lives of the working people hereafter” (48). The remark signals that Humphrey’s character has been humbled and is poised for change to better adapt to his new environment—an environment that threatens to completely upend Humphrey’s moral code, especially when he is provoked by Mugridge’s demands and debasement.

Larsen’s enigmatic character begins to deepen as Humphrey witnesses more of his duality—both his materialist amorality and lofty intellect. Their conversations surround the idea of an immortal soul as defined by the prevalent Christian ideology of the time. Larsen struggles to accept the idea of soul’s immortality—and, thus, systemized religion in general—without a clear explanation of the reason for life. One of Larsen’s recurring questions is: “What is the end? What is it all about?” (41). Humphrey struggles to put his emotions and ideas into words, being more of a romantic in nature and having thus far taken religion as a matter of course. These intellectual conversations are juxtaposed with Larsen’s brutal, duplicitous reputation. The discrepancy between violence and intellectualism intrigues Humphrey, who desires to learn more about the captain.