Of Boys and Men

Master and Commander, revisited

It is a truth universally acknowledged that guys are obsessed with Master and Commander. At least, guys of a certain Type—generally over 30, if not 40, and generally dads. A recent GQ column examines the movie’s cult following and what exactly it did right to make its fans so loyal. The conclusion is simple: It tells a story about men and boys who are bound together by a common purpose that is distinctly and unapologetically masculine in nature. (As one wag joked on Twitter, it actually does pass the Bechdel test…if you count the ships as “female characters” in conversation with each other.) Beyond this, it gives the 21st-century man a noble ideal to strive for, in his own small 21st-century way. Director Peter Weir sums up, “It’s about how men (and boys) behaved in that time and circumstance. How they understood concepts like ‘duty’ and ‘courage’. Perhaps that has some relevance today. Times change, and with them fashions, but some things remain imperishable. This film touches on those imperishables.”

All this is very true. Though, in my judgment, the GQ piece actually somewhat short-sells the film. If by some chance you stumbled onto the article without having ever seen it, you could form a certain impression of the story that was a good deal, well, happier than it actually is. Not that it’s “an unhappy story,” overall. But it most definitely explores shade as well as light, even around questions of masculine identity. And the answers it arrives at are more nuanced than one might expect. This emerges most strongly in the story arcs for the young crew, who are sometimes overlooked in the focus on Aubrey and Maturin’s “bromance.”

In fact, the whole film can be read as a coming-of-age story for young Lord Blakeney, a prepubescent midshipman for whom Aubrey has a paternal soft spot. We learn early on that the boy’s father is dead but was a close friend of Aubrey’s. Aubrey takes the lad under his wing and feeds his imagination with dreams of adventure and heroism, presenting him with a book full of the exploits of Lord Nelson. Blakeney first has the chance to display his own budding rare courage when Maturin amputates his arm with nothing but laudanum by way of anesthetic. He endures the operation in tears, but never cries out. Maturin honors him by saying he has “never seen a braver patient.”

Both Aubrey and Maturin proceed to become mentor figures for Blakeney, though their mentorship takes very different forms. Not that the doctor is in any way un-masculine. His masculinity simply manifests in quieter ways. Like Blakeney, his courage is also tested by pain when he suffers a bullet wound and performs a grueling self-administered surgery. The teeth-gritting fortitude with which he sees the operation through is nothing if not manly. And his skill on a stringed instrument, so far from being thought “girlish,” is shared with Aubrey, an essential component of their male bonding. The crew also admires not just his skill but his knowledge, the fact that he “knows his birds and his beasts.” As one crewman says in awed tones, “You show him a beetle, and he’ll tell you what it’s thinking.”

As the story unfolds, Aubrey and Maturin seem to contend inside the boy’s soul—the man of war and the man of peace. He finds himself identifying with both of them, in their distinctive ways. When he drinks wine and sings sea shanties with the captain and his crew, his heart stirs with the thrill of the adventure for its own sake, the fight for its own sake. But when he studies rare insects with the doctor, he also finds himself loving this peace, this quiet contemplation. Perhaps, he muses, he could combine these parts of himself “to become a sort of…fighting naturalist.” The doctor smiles at this. “They don’t combine too well, I find.”

Indeed, the fighter and the naturalist openly clash in Aubrey and Maturin’s sometimes heated arguments—Aubrey obsessed with taking the prize of the Acheron at all costs, Maturin angry that they are rushing by natural wonders on what seems like a fool’s errand. When the need arises, Maturin is neither unwilling nor unable to take up arms, as we see in the final battle. But he sees fighting as a grim necessity, not a thing to be courted for pleasure. To quote Faramir in Lord of the Rings, Aubrey is the kind of man who really does love the bright sword for its sharpness, the cannonball for its swiftness. Maturin, like Faramir, loves only that which they defend. The pure joy of the fighter is something he doesn’t understand, just as Aubrey doesn’t understand the pure joy of the naturalist. Aubrey’s jab, “We have no time for your damn hobbies, sir!” which he instantly regrets, leaves Maturin bitterly hurt.

Maturin is also a voice of mercy against Aubrey’s rough justice, as one of the crewmen is shackled and lashed for disrespecting a young officer. Aubrey is allowed to make his case, explaining that he doesn’t take a sadistic pleasure in dealing out the punishment. Nevertheless, “Men must be governed!” Maturin dares to retort that this smacks of tyranny. He always did have a kind of sympathy for mutiny, he admits. In the end, justice prevails, and we wince at every lash.

Meanwhile, Blakeney attempts to befriend the sensitive disrespected officer, Midshipman Hollum, for whom the burden of his own manly duty becomes too much to bear. Though Hollum is more than twice as old as Blakeney, he is far less resilient, lacking a natural instinct for decisive leadership. His story becomes the film’s darkest subplot, as the rest of the superstitious crew whispers that he is a “Jonah” who brings bad luck by his mere presence on the ship. An exasperated Aubrey tries to mentor him, to pump some self-respect into him. But it is painfully obvious that Hollum has never had the disposition to be a leader of men, and never will. In the end, he doesn’t wait to be cast into the sea like Jonah. He finishes the job himself, while Blakeney helplessly watches. As the crew gathers the following day, Aubrey’s voice is softened as he reflects, “The simple truth is not all of us become the men we once hoped we might be.” Hollum was only ever given the chance to become one sort of man. The film seems to suggest, subtly, that this was a kind of injustice.

But Blakeney, whether by virtue of his innocence, his natural resilience, or both, is able to become that man. As Aubrey and Maturin eventually reconcile, so their spirits reconcile within him. He accompanies the doctor when he finally gets his wish to explore the Galapagos Islands, but when they spot Acheron in the bay, he also grasps instantly that their animal specimens must be abandoned so that a still-weak Maturin can be carried swiftly back to the ship. (Not quite all the specimens though. An insect disguising itself as a stick proves symbolically fortuitous, inspiring Aubrey to disguise the Surprise as a whaling ship.) In the final battle, he is left behind by the boarding party to take command of the Surprise, capably directing her cannons at vital moments of the fight. Though, like all the crew, he will eventually have to pick up a sword, missing right arm be damned.

Blakeney completes his coming of age when he stitches up the body of his closest friend, Peter, who was assigned command of the boarding party—like Blakeney, a boy treated as a man among men. He insists on being the one to make the last stitches, planning to leave out the indignity of the customary final stitch through the nose. (Earlier, while unsure if he would survive his own wound, he had made Peter promise him “not through the nose.”)

By now, Blakeney has been permanently battle-scarred. He has watched one friend drown in a storm, another friend drown by suicide. He has commanded men in battle. With his own hands, he has laid his best friend to rest. He kneels down a boy. He rises a man. And now, having studied his fill of war for one day, he retires with his dear friend, the doctor, to study a beetle in peace.