58 pages • 1 hour read
Patrick O'BrianMaster and Commander
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1969A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
An emotionless, dull ship’s log is compared to the real events that happen on the Sophie during her voyage. While the ship’s log dispassionately records the death of a sailor, the crew is upset by his sudden death on his 50th birthday. Similarly, the log records the weather, but does not mention that the sailors understand the heat to indicate a coming storm. The Sophie weathers an intense storm. They come across a small ship, but Maturin identifies signs of plague in the dead crewmen on deck. While Maturin wants to go aboard to look for survivors, Aubrey forbids it, not wanting to risk infecting the whole crew and getting quarantined.
Aubrey pursues another ship, a polacre, for an entire night in order to capture it, remaining on deck despite the bad weather. He attempts to go and enjoy the company of Maturin, Dillon, and Marshall, but finds himself feeling isolated and out of place due to his superior rank. The Sophie captures the polacre, a French merchant ship called the Aimable Louise, and claims it as a prize, capturing the goods and sending it back to an English-controlled port. Aubrey is satisfied with having more money, hoping to purchase enough gunpowder to make his ship more dangerous in combat.
The crew of the Sophie spot other ships sailing nearby, although they all fly false colors to confuse other ships due to the war. They approach a ship and find it to be Danish, and Aubrey treats the captain amiably. In exchange, the Danes tell them the location of a nearby French ship, the Citoyen Durand. The French ship immediately surrenders and when Dillon goes aboard, he finds that this is because the ship is laden with gunpowder and could easily combust. A passenger on the ship is giving birth, so Maturin is brought over to help deliver the baby. Maturin saves the baby’s life, giving him the opportunity to finally talk to Dillon alone as they sail the Citoyen Durand back to Minorca.
They acknowledge that they met one another in the Society of United Irishmen and agree that Ireland needs to have better representation in government, but that it ought not to be an independent republic. Maturin was disgusted by the violence of the 1798 Irish rebellion, but Dillon questions whether he has truly given up on Irish patriotism because he watched Maturin stop Aubrey from singing an offensive anti-Irish song. Maturin admits that he considers Aubrey a friend, believing that he is more unaware than prejudiced against the Irish, and he stopped his singing so that the Catholic crewmembers would not hate their captain.
Dillon says that he dislikes Aubrey because of his attitude toward money and his treatment of Mr. Marshall. Dillon finds Aubrey to be too motivated by money, fighting for profit rather than honor. He also is upset that Aubrey allows a gay sailor to serve on his crew. Maturin objects, stating that Aubrey is not gay and that he tolerates Marshall because Marshall does not act on his sexuality in a way that violates the law. Dillon, growing increasingly angry as they drink together, admits that he hates Aubrey for being a Protestant, while he, a Catholic, was passed over for a promotion that he should have earned for his heroism aboard the Dart. Dillon doubts Aubrey’s courage because he turned away from fighting the Algerian pirate galley, while Maturin believes that it was prudent to protect the rest of the merchant convoy.
Dawn breaks as they arrive at Minoca, and Dillon feels ashamed for his bitter words against Aubrey. He reassures Maturin that he too would favor a reformed Irish parliament rather than an independent republic, and he wishes that he had not expressed himself so inaccurately in conversation.
Chapter 6 Summary
Back in Minorca, Maturin awaits the return of the Sophie at his lodging. He has acquired an asp preserved in alcohol that he plans to take back to the ship for study. In his diary, he records his thoughts in shorthand. Maturin is concerned about Dillon, worrying that he is at the point of age where his biases and character traits will become rigid and set him down a particular path. Maturin did not realize Dillon was Catholic and wonders how much his religious beliefs and dislike of Aubrey will influence him. He hopes that the two will be able to become friends eventually. The Sophie returns to Minorca with another prize, a captured Spanish ship, and Aubrey comes ashore to meet Maturin. Aubrey asks Maturin to put on his silk stockings so that they can go to a party, but he is frightened by a snake and jumps onto a chair. This amuses his friend because the snake is not venomous.
They go to the house of the shipyard officer, Mr. Brown, for dinner. Together, they play music with his family. Aubrey drinks too much and when they next go to a party at Captain Harte’s house, his lewd and gory sailor’s stories offend the polite company. Mrs. Harte asks Maturin to take Aubrey away so that he will stop damaging his reputation. In the morning, Aubrey is eager to return to sea, where their vices cannot damage them so much.
Back aboard the Sophie, several crew members are flogged for drunkenness. Maturin treats a patient called Cheslin for “despair.” He is unable to eat and is growing weak because the other crew members ostracize him for being a former “sin eater.” A sin eater, Maturin explains, is a man who eats a piece of bread placed atop a corpse, which has supposedly absorbed the sins of the dead body. Because Cheslin did not keep down all the sins, he was a pariah and volunteered to join the navy to escape his community.
Aubrey wants to preserve a good working crewmate, but is doubtful that anything can be done, recalling how albatrosses will swarm and attack their own kind if one paints a red cross on their chest. Maturin requests to have Cheslin made into his “loblolly boy,” meaning the assistant to the surgeon. However, Maturin is distracted when one of the sailors finds a remora—a suckerfish—while cleaning the side of the ship.
Chapters 5-6 Analysis
These chapters show The Cost of Ambition through Dillon, Aubrey, and their relationship. Aubrey’s ambition and his successful capture of enemy ships increase Dillon’s animosity toward him, and Dillon reveals his true feelings about Aubrey to Maturin. While Dillon is similar to Aubrey in temperament and ambition, he is, ironically, less understanding than Maturin, who appreciates Aubrey despite their vastly different personalities. When Maturin asks him what he finds offensive about Aubrey, Dillon responds, “[P]erhaps I should reply ‘everything, since he has a command and I have not’” (174), reminding Maturin that he was passed over for a promotion despite his heroic actions about the Dart. While Dillon admits that Aubrey is “an excellent seaman” (175), he nevertheless criticizes his “particular beefy arrogant English insensibility” (174). This suggests that Dillon’s resentment of Aubrey is due to personal frustration and differences in belief, though he does genuinely condemn Aubrey’s perceived lack of honor. Maturin notes that Dillon was never particularly devout, but that he may feel a stronger loyalty to Catholic ideology than he does to the British Navy, which foreshadows Dillon’s upcoming conflicts.
Maturin reflects in his diary that Dillon is at the point in life where he will become stuck in his ways and beliefs. Maturin considers this to be a problem that arises from both age and authority: “I know few men over fifty that seem to me entirely human: virtually none who has long exercised authority” (181). Both Dillon and Aubrey seek promotion, yet their desire for command and the disappointments that come with that slowly rob them of their youthful cheer and unbiased perspective. Maturin values men who can remain open and hopeful despite their age—characteristics that he assigns to Admiral Nelson, and to Aubrey, which illustrates that theirs is a Friendship Between Equals. Dillon, however, is poised to become more “inhuman” due to his bitterness, which distances him from Maturin.
These chapters also advance the notion of the Sophie as a haven from the troubles that arise on shore, showcasing The Customs of Sailors Versus the Customs of Shore. Ironically, the daring capture of enemy ships proves less dangerous to the Sophie’s crew than their own vices. When the Sophie returns to Port Mahon, all of the crew find themselves facing problems when they try to interact with society on land. At parties on land, Aubrey drunkenly tells lewd and gory tales, makes crude jokes, and describes the details of Maturin’s surgeries. This is a clear sign that despite how well Aubrey and Maturin get along, Aubrey does not fit in with “land-dwellers.” Mrs. Harte takes Maturin aside to try to mitigate the trouble, saying, “Tell him his ship is on fire—tell him anything. Only get him away—he will do himself such damage” (189). Mrs. Harte’s intervention hints at her relationship with Aubrey, but it also establishes a power dynamic, indicating that no matter how successful a sailor may be, ruining their reputation on land could mean destroying their career. When Aubrey does return to his ship in the morning, hungover and counting how many crew members have been arrested for drunkenness, he feels desperate to go back to sea:
[W]here he could not be betrayed by his own tongue; where Stephen could not get himself into bad odour with authority; and where that infernal child Babbington did not have to be rescued from aged women of the town. And where James Dillon could not fight a duel (189).
These scenes parallel the way Maturin fumbled through his introduction to sea life in Chapters 3 and 4, but unlike Maturin, who was forced to acclimate, Aubrey simply retreats from the rigid propriety that is common on shore, taking his crew—all of whom are similarly incompatible with life on land—with him.
Finally, these chapters explore Aubrey and Maturin’s relationships to the rest of the crew. Aside from Dillon’s personal dislike, there are several instances hinting at the distance between the crew and Aubrey. Although they do not necessarily dislike him, and his ambitious behavior brings them success, Aubrey cannot bond with them as equals because everyone is too conscious of his high rank. This is a contrast to the way Maturin settles more comfortably into the crew, dining with them, talking to them, and advising them. Maturin acts as something as a bridge between Aubrey and others—not only Mrs. Harte and the people on land, but also the rest of the crew. He offers Dillon a new perspective on Aubrey’s thoughts and actions, and he takes Cheslin under his wing, solving the problem of Cheslin’s presence in a way that Aubrey, as master and commander, could not. This cements Maturin’s role aboard the Sophie just as much as it strengthens his friendship with Aubrey.
