Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Island of the Blue Dolphins, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Natural World
Solitude
Friendship
Gender Roles and Survival
Colonialism, Violence, and Indigenous Culture
Summary
Analysis
The earthquake doesn’t cause much damage; the spring stops flowing for a few days, but it comes back stronger than ever. It does destroy all Karana’s food and weapons stored in the cave, and her canoes. The canoes are a huge loss. Rather than spend all spring and summer looking for wood to make a new one, Karana goes looking for any of the canoes that the waves might’ve washed up. Finally, on the south of the island, Karana finds parts of one canoe. She digs it out and scrapes it clean. Then, she has to make a choice: cut it apart and carry it to Coral Cove in pieces, a process that will take days; or build the canoe here. Karana decides on a third option: floating the canoe pieces around the island and into the cove.
Now that Karana has spent so many years relying on her canoe to get around the island and provide for herself, it’s unsettling for her to suddenly be stuck on land. This further establishes the canoes as symbols of Karana’s freedom—without them, she doesn’t feel free at all. Fortunately, though, Karana now has the skills to fix and rebuild the canoe, so though there are a lot of factors to consider as she makes her plan, there’s no question as to whether or not she’ll be mobile again when she’s done.
Themes
Karana finds the remains of her other canoe stuck so far in the cave that she can’t get it out. She manages to find enough new wood to build a whole new canoe. It’s now late spring, and Karana needs the canoe to gather shellfish. She isn’t worried about the Aleuts anymore, but she does feel unsettled without reliable transportation. The work on the new canoe is difficult, but the big waves did help by washing long strings of black pitch onto the shore. These are normally hard to find. Once the pieces are prepared, the work goes fast. By late spring, Karana is ready to finish the seams.
Again, Karana’s nervousness now that she doesn’t have a reliable canoe highlights the canoe’s symbolism. More than anything else, it helped Karana feel free and capable on the island. She also discovers that the tidal wave did help her out somewhat. Even when the natural world is destructive, then, Karana discovers that this isn’t always a bad thing. There are silver linings, if she can learn to work with the natural disasters instead of just fearing them.
Themes
To do this, Karana builds a fire to soften the pitch. It’s windy and cold, so the fire takes a while to start. While Karana is on the beach looking for dry seaweed to help the fire, she looks up at the sky. The clouds look like a storm might be coming—but in the cloud’s shadows, Karana sees a ship. She drops her seaweed and races to the headland for a better look. It’s moving fast, but it doesn’t look anything like the Aleuts’ ship or the white men’s ship.
Recall that at the time Karana started work on the canoe, she wasn’t worried anymore about the Aleuts. She also hasn’t mentioned the white men’s ship in a long time, which suggests she’s no longer spending much time waiting for it to come back. Seeing this ship forces Karana to reorient herself once again and prepare for the possibility that she might see another person again soon.
Themes
Karana doesn’t know what to do. If these men are here to hunt otter, she has to hide. They’ll find her fire and her canoe, but she’ll probably be safe in the cave. Alternatively, if Karana’s tribe sent these men to get Karana, she shouldn’t hide. She watches the ship move into Coral Cove; it’s close enough now that she can tell the men aren’t Aleuts. They lower a canoe and head for the beach. Soon after, Karana hears a shout and knows they found her canoe. The men shout, but not at each other—so Karana knows they’re calling to her.
Karana finds herself in a difficult spot here, since she’s never seen this ship before. And as a single person on the island—and one without a canoe—she’s in a vulnerable position if these people are dangerous. But when the people call for her, it suggests that they’re connected to her tribe and have come to get her. At last, it seems, Karana won’t have to be alone on the island any longer.
Themes
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Karana goes home. She puts on her otter cape and her cormorant skirt and grabs her jewelry. Then, she and Rontu-Aru head for Coral Cove. When she comes to the place where her ancestors sometimes camped in the summer, she thinks of all the happy times she’s had here. But Karana desperately wants to be with other people. When she gets to the beach, though, the men have already gone back to the ship. The wind is loud, so Karana shouts. The men don’t see her. It starts to rain, but Karana wades out into the water. The ship moves away, and Karana watches it go.
Now that Karana is certain she’s getting off the island, she can say outright that she’s ready to be around other people. This isn’t something she’s been able to voice before, presumably because acknowledging her loneliness would make it harder to bear. So, it’s extremely difficult for her when the ship moves away without her. She’s now lost the chance to get off the island. And given how long it took for this ship to return for her, there’s no telling how long she’ll be stuck here.
Themes
