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The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard two destroyer-minesweepers in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Among its themes, it deals with the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by ship captains and other officers.
- Herman Wouk
- 1951
Herman Wouk (/ woʊk / WOHK; May 27, 1915 – May 17, 2019) was an American author. He published fifteen novels, many of them historical fiction such as The Caine Mutiny (1951), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
A huge best-seller, drawing from his wartime experiences aboard minesweepers during World War II, The Caine Mutiny was adapted by the author into a Broadway play called The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, and was later made into a film, with Humphrey Bogart portraying Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, captain of the fictional USS Caine. Some Navy ...
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The Caine Mutiny, novel by Herman Wouk, published in 1951. The novel was awarded the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Caine Mutiny grew out of Wouk’s experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Media Adaptations
- Themes
- Topics For Further Study
- Style
- Historical Context
- Compare & Contrast
Herman Wouk's best-selling novel The Caine Mutiny, subtitled A Novel of World War II, remains one of the greatest American novels to come out of World War II. Wouk, himself a WWII veteran who had served aboard minesweepers in the South Pacific, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1952 for this account of a mutiny aboard a fictional minesweeper, the USS Caine. ...
Wouk was born into a wealthy family on May 27, 1915, in New York City. He graduated from Columbia University in 1934. His first job was writing for radio in New York, and then scripts for Fred Allen from 1936 to 1941. When war broke out, he put his writing talents into the service of the U.S. government and became a "dollar-a-year-man," writing the...
The Caine Mutinyopens with a page torn from the book of Navy regulations outlining the articles that will become critical to the plot: the regulations describing the conditions that must be fulfilled in order for a captain to be relieved of his command.
Captain De Vriess
Captain De Vriess is the first commander of the USS Caine, which has seen constant action near the front and, therefore, appears rather bedraggled. His style of command disgusts Keith, who would prefer following Navy regulations, but that is because he is fresh to the war. Still, for all De Vriess' laxness, the crew performs amazing feats of speed for him. They consistently out-drill all the other minesweepers in the fleet. Keith surprises himself when, late in the novel, he speaks of De Vrie...
Ducely
Ducely is Keith's assistant. Soon, however, his mother arranges for his transfer stateside.
Walter Feather
Walter is May Wynn's new boyfriend. He is a great entertainer and has crafted her reputation as a "bombshell."
Using the screenplay by (Seymour) Michael Blankfort, The Caine Mutinywas filmed by Columbia Pictures in 1954. Humphrey Bogart stars as Captain Queeg, Charles Nolte is Willis Keith, and May Wynn pla...Alvin Rakoff adapted Wouk's story for televission as "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial," first broadcast by BBC-TV, June, 1958.Herman Wouk adapted the novel into a staged version of the court-martial trial. Paul Gregory first produced the play in the Granada Theatre, Santa Barbara, California, on October 12, 1953. Several...Authority
As a moral tract for the 1950s, The Caine Mutinysuggests that a strong authority is all-important for safeguarding the nation. Keith, for both his father and himself, turns down his first vocation—a fun, independent life of playing the piano—to fight for his country. This enables him to become a man in his own mind. His training allows him to put aside his own fear and concerns to take command when Keefer places the ship and its men in danger. The novel centers on Queeg's inability to embody...
Sex Roles
A subplot of the novel concerns the relationship between Wynn and Keith. Their courtship is wrought with all the societal tensions surrounding the roles of the sexes. One of these tensions is employment. At that time, society determined that women should stay at home to raise children into good citizens. But Wynn was forced to work for financial reasons. On top of this, but not touched on in the novel, women from all economic classes during World War II were encouraged through propaganda to w...
Pick one of the novels referenced by Wouk in Pick one of the novels referenced by Wouk in the story. Read that novel and compare it to The Caine Mutiny. How does the constant referencing of other n...Given the environmental concerns of the late 1990s, reflect on the prescience of the following: "Willie thought it was curious that with the coming of the Americans, the once-charming tropical isla...There is a passing reference to Native American legal battles through the person of Barney Greenwald. Do some research on the legal battles of Indian tribes in America. What possible relevance does...Discover what happened to Japanese-American citizens domestically. A good account of this experience is contained in Joy Kogawa's 1981 novel, Obasan. Why were the citizens of Japanese descent inter...Narration
Wouk's narrative technique is perhaps the most interesting yet problematic aspect of the novel. There is evidence of almost every form of narration, although it remains third-person omniscient. It is full of overt fictional references as well as subtle allusions, especially to the classic American novel Moby-Dick. The constant reference to other works of fiction and near mimicry of famous tales makes the novel a self-conscious work. The narration can also be suspected of being unreliable. Mos...
Realism
Wouk considered himself a realist, like authors such as Theodore Dreiser and W. D. Howells who attempted objective positions, realistic descriptions, and accurate observation of human behavior. Realist writing is bereft of philosophy, judgment, or propaganda. Such writing by Wouk stands in marked contrast to John Steinbeck's overt socialism, Albert Camus' existentialism, and James Farrell's and Ralph Ellison's cynicism. Given these contemporaries and their rejection of the value system of Wou...
Irony
Irony, a self-aware moment of incongruity, is an important part of Wouk's technique. Perhaps the greatest irony in the novel concerns the court-martial of an executive officer aboard an old minesweeper while the grandest war ever fought on earth is mere background noise; "It amused Willie to consider, as he struggled to dress in his galloping room, that the issue of the morning had dwindled so quickly from life-or-death to a question of the wardroom's breakfast." In another instance, "There w...
World War II—The South Pacific
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese plan to deliver a declaration of war to President Roosevelt just moments before a pre-dawn raid on America's naval base in Pearl Harbor. Instead, the message is an hour late and the act becomes "the day of infamy" which rouses America into the dominant military and industrial complex it remains today. The Pacific fleet is not entirely destroyed and Japan hurries to gain advantage before America can build more ships. Along with industrial might, the crucial el...
WWII: After Japan's surrender, America occupies Japan. 1950s: On September 8, 1951, the United States and Japan sign a security pact that permits U.S. troops to remain on Japanese soil while any ot...WWII: The United States is the first nation to use a nuclear bomb in war. 1950s: In 1951, the United States stages the first military maneuvers involving troops and nuclear bombs. Today: The United...WWII: America's productive capacity makes the United States the greatest military power in the world. 1950s: Truman's 1951 budget contains the largest military expenditure to date. Today: President...WWII: At the war's end, America insists on a proactive United Nations where nations can peaceably resolve disputes. 1950s: America begins a tradition of using the United Nations as a cover for its...Jan 15, 2013 · Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a perennial favorite of readers young and old, Herman Wouk's masterful World War II drama set aboard a U.S. Navy warship in the Pacific is "a novel of...
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Herman Wouk is the author of The Caine Mutiny, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, and Inside, Outside. His latest novel is The Lawgiver, a romantic...
