A succession of men sat in this chair. I became aware of this thought suddenly, vividly, as if some sort of composite soul, the soul of command, had suddenly whispered to me of long days at sea and moments of anxiety. "You too!" it seemed to say: "you too will taste this peace and this disturbance in a sought-after intimacy with yourself..." Deep within the tarnished gilded bronze frame... I saw my own face wedged between my hands. And I looked at myself with the perfect detachment of distance, rather with curiosity than with any other feeling, with the exception of a certain sympathy for this last representative of what... was a dynasty; continues not in blood, of course, but in his experience, in his training, in his conception of duty and in the blessed simplicity of his traditional point of view on life. p. 52-53Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The narrator here, just aboard his first command, fully understands the magnitude of his position as captain. He is not simply a man responsible for the safe passage of a ship through the eastern seas; he is the embodiment of a tradition, the representative of a long line of similar men whose sole purpose was to maintain that tradition. It is only through introspection, a major theme of this work, that the narrator can unashamedly take his place in the dynasty. Here the narrator literally reflects, in the glass of an ornate mirror. But his true reflection on himself, his search for intimacy with himself, takes place through a more appropriate mirror, the sea. This continuous action alludes to the quote from Baudelaire which opens the story: “Others times, flat calm, great mirror of my despair. It is here also, at the beginning of the story, that we are presented with a second, albeit related, theme of the work, that of the transition from youth to maturity. Our narrator initially presents himself in an unflattering manner, admitting that, on a whim, he had deserted a perfectly acceptable ship. He is a young man without an aim, or rather, he is aimless because of his youth. As he says: “The green disease of the end of youth has come upon me and taken me away. » (5) The reason, never clearly specified, for his resignation is due to the perception of a shadow line in the distance, reminding him that his youth is declining. He doesn't know exactly what he's looking for, but he knows he hasn't found it yet. Indeed, he considers his months aboard his late ship a dreary and prosaic waste of days. The narrator seeks the state of maturity which can only be achieved through tribulation and reflection; and through his great fortune and the guidance of a mature but initially underestimated elder, he has the opportunity to engage in thinking like the captain of an ill-fated ship. It is necessary to note the naivety of the new captain when he begins his command. He firmly believes that the sea is the only cure for all his troubles. (71) At first glance, the captain's guess couldn't be further from the truth. When the ship was launched, a fever appeared, for which the sea was no cure. Even the prescribed antidote, quinine, in insufficient quantities cannot relieve the problem. The passage is painfully slow and emotionally taxing for the narrator. He considers himself entirely responsible for the shortage of quinine and, as captain, considers himself responsible for the well-being of the ship and its crew as a whole. If the sea cannot be held responsible for the condition of the crew or the lack of medicine, it forgives nothing. The sea awakens the narrator to the reality where he is confronted with his own.