Cycles of History
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas contains six stories that, despite occurring at very different points in history, share many themes, motifs, characters, and events. The novel has a nesting-doll structure, where each story takes place within another story. This intricate structure highlights how history changes and repeats itself over the years.
One of the most important cycles in the book involves a comet-shaped birthmark, which the characters Robert Frobisher, Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish…
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Greed
The villains in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas are all characters who are willing to do whatever it takes for the sake of greed. From the murderous thief Henry Goose in “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing” to the brutal Kona warriors of “Sloosha’s Crossin’ An’ Ev’rythin’ After,” some characters are willing to do whatever it takes—even kill—to make even a small profit. Many greedy characters think more in the short term than the long term…
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Slavery and Imprisonment
Most of the stories in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas deal with some type of slavery. The first story chronologically, “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing,” depicts slavery as it existed in the real world, focusing specifically on the genocide and enslavement of the Moriori people in the Chatham Islands, as well as referencing oceanic slave trading more generally. Though the middle stories don’t overtly refer to slavery as slavery, it still exists in some…
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Aging and Mortality
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas portrays many characters near the end of their lives and meditates on the inevitability of death. While some characters, like Robert Frobisher, die young and violently (in his case, from suicide), many struggle with what it means to grow older. Robert’s friend Rufus Sixsmith, for example, lives long enough to see his body grow frail from disease. He witnesses a modern world that Robert couldn’t ever have imagined, holding…
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