Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea his wanderings. Polyphemus asks Odysseus his name, and Odysseus replies that his name is "Utis" (ουτις), which translates as "No-man" or "No-body". In the Latin translation of the "Odyssey", this pseudonym is rendered as ""Nemo"", which in Latin also translates as "No-man" or "No-body". Similarly to Nemo, Odysseus must wander the seas in exile (though only for 10 years) and is tormented by the deaths of his ship's crew. Jules Verne several times mentions Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury, "Captain Maury" in Verne's book, a real-life oceanographer who explored the winds, seas, currents, and collected samples of the bottom of the
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea the book from the initial concept is a portrait of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish national hero, leader of the uprising against Russia in 1794, with an inscription in Latin: "Finis Poloniae!" ("The end of Poland!"). Margaret Drabble argues that "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" anticipated the ecology movement and shaped the French avant-garde. Theodore L. Thomas in 1961 said that "there is not a single bit of valid speculation" in the novel and that "none of its predictions has come true". He described the depictions of the diving gear, scenes, and the "Nautilus" as "pretty bad, behind the times