The captain of the Esperança
The Portuguese merchant-ship captain whom Scobie first protects and later forces to repay that mercy.
To protect his daughter and continue his voyage without losing his ship, position, or freedom.
The book
At a glance
- Captain of the Esperança
- Portuguese
- Father of a daughter in German-held territory
- Protected, then used, by Scobie
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeThe unnamed captain commands the Esperança, a neutral Portuguese merchant ship calling at the wartime port. Scobie searches the vessel for contraband and finds a private letter the captain is trying to send to his daughter in German-held territory.
Scobie destroys the letter instead of reporting him. The act looks merciful, but it creates an obligation between them. Later, when Yusef blackmails Scobie, Scobie asks the captain to carry a forbidden packet.
The captain therefore reverses Scobie’s usual position. Scobie is accustomed to pitying compromised people; on the second encounter he becomes the compromised man receiving another person’s pity.
How The captain of the Esperança Is Portrayed
- Nervous under inspectionThe wartime search places a private family letter inside an official system of censorship and suspicion.
- A father before a suspectScobie responds to the captain’s love for his daughter more strongly than to the rule the letter breaks.
- Bound by mercyScobie’s decision not to report him becomes an unspoken debt that can later be called in.
- Able to pity ScobieWhen Scobie returns with Yusef’s packet, the captain sees that the policeman has lost the moral independence he once possessed.
Yusef blackmails Scobie into moving a packet of diamonds. Scobie returns to the Esperança and asks the captain he once protected to carry the contraband.
The favor completes a reversal. Scobie’s earlier pity gave him moral power over the captain, and he now spends that power to hide his own affair. The captain’s response makes Scobie feel the humiliation of being pitied in return.
If you like The Heart of the Matter
If you like Graham Greene
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Paul Bowles
American novelist and composer whose expatriate fiction explores dislocation, unstable intimacy, fatalism, and North Africa.
View author
Kurt Vonnegut
American novelist whose fiction combines satire, science fiction, and the experience of surviving the bombing of Dresden.
View author