Ned Land is the first person who spots the monster. He is an unusual character, and the person who enjoys the voyage aboard the <em>Nautilus</em> the least. Even though he is a harpooner, and a man who spends most of his time in the ocean, he is desperate to get back to land. He takes very little pleasure in studying or exploration and is instead desperate to have a comfortable and safe life. He has very basic needs and pleasures, and these are not satisfied in the submarine.
The setting of "Marigolds" is during the depression or the 30s. You know this because the story says, "The depression that gripped the nation was no new thing to us" and "the black workers of rural Maryland had always been depressed".
