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
Karana doesn’t remember much of this time. Many days pass and she only leaves the village to gather more food. Eventually, she decides she won’t live in the village anymore. The fog creeping through the silent huts reminds Karana of the dead villagers. She can almost hear them speaking. So, she builds a fire and burns the huts, one by one. Karana takes a basket of food with her to a headland west of Coral Cove. There’s a sheltered spot between a big rock and two trees, and there’s water nearby. Karana sleeps on the rock that night; the wild dogs can’t get her there.
The ghostly fog drives home that Karana is the final survivor on the island. The way her tribe has always lived is coming to an end—she’s just one person now, surrounded by ghosts. By burning the village, she destroys evidence that her tribe ever lived here. And while she’s definitely using everything her tribe taught her to survive, her solitary predicament means that she’s inevitably moving away from how things have historically been.
Themes
It’s still winter and the ship might return any day, so Karana doesn’t bother storing much food. Instead, she makes weapons to protect herself from the dogs and ultimately to kill them all. She found a club in a hut, but she needs a bow, arrows, and a spear. Ghalas-at’s laws state that women can’t make weapons, so Karana searches for any left behind. She checks the village and then the hidden canoes. Finding nothing, she heads for Coral Cove, hoping to find spearheads in the chest the Aleuts left on the shore.
At this point, Karana is very lonely and can only focus on how and when she might get off the island. However, her attention is being pulled in multiple directions. She knows she has to figure out weapons of some sort, or she won’t survive long enough for the ship to return. By deciding to look for weapons rather than make them, though, Karana keeps one of her tribe’s traditions (that women can’t make tools) alive.
Themes
It’s low tide. Karana starts to dig small holes in the sand, figuring the storms covered the chest up. Finally, she finds the chest. Karana digs all morning until the tide comes in, and she resumes digging when the tide turns. Eventually, Karana can lift the lid. The chest is filled with jewelry. Karana puts on a long string of beads and two matching bracelets to walk the shore. When she reaches the spot where the villagers and the Aleuts fought, Karana remembers those who died. She returns to the chest, knowing she can never wear this jewelry. Karana flings all the beads into the waves and discovers no iron spearheads underneath.
The jewelry is beautiful, but it’s impossible for Karana to ignore that this jewelry is no compensation at all for the villagers the Aleuts killed. So, though she tries to put a positive spin on the jewelry, she finds it’s impossible to do so. It’s even more salt in the wound when Karana doesn’t find any spearheads under the beads. It doesn’t seem like Orlov ever intended to keep his promises—the natives were nothing to him but an obstacle, there only to be exploited.
Themes
Karana forgets all about weapons until, days later, the dogs howl under her rock. She watches them slink through the brush all day and dig up her buried supper that evening. Karana is afraid of the dogs, but she’s also afraid of what might happen if she makes the weapons she needs. Will the winds smother her, or will an earthquake bury her in rocks? Will the sea flood the island? Will the weapons break just when she needs them, as her father said? After two days of thinking, Karana decides she has to make weapons.
Being on the island alone—and having to face dangers like the wild dogs—forces Karana’s priorities to change. She’s grown up hearing that terrible things will happen if she disobeys her tribe’s rules. But at this point, she also realizes that if she continues to not make weapons, terrible things are going to happen anyway—at some point, the dogs are going to get her. In her mind, it's better to tempt natural disasters than essentially let the dogs win.
Themes
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Karana needs a sea elephant’s tusk for her spear tip, but she doesn’t have a weapon—or three men—to kill one. So, she fashions a tree root into a point and ties it to a long shaft. The bow and arrows are harder, but Karana eventually finds the right kind of wood for the bow. What’s even harder than finding the materials, though, is making the weapons. She’s only ever watched them being made, and she never paid close attention. But finally, Karana crafts a useable bow and arrows. She carries it everywhere. The dogs don’t visit her camp while she’s making weapons, but once, when the weapons are done, Karana notices the dogs’ leader watching her.
As a woman, Karana has been educated in traditionally feminine tasks: gathering, caregiving, cooking. She’s never had to care about how to make an effective weapon, so now she finds herself at a disadvantage. When she does successfully construct weapons, though, it shows that women weren’t forbidden from making weapons because they’re naturally incapable. Rather, it was just a way to ensure everything got done. As a single person on the island, though, Karana’s sex starts to matter much less—she has to do everything for herself now.
Themes
Having weapons makes Karana feel secure, and she’s certain that the dogs will eventually come to the camp. She makes herself a bed of seaweed on her rock. Karana watches the gulls, pelicans, and otter every morning. At night, she thinks about the white men’s ship, but it never returns for her. Though the village used to wake up and get to work early, Karana starts sleeping in. She doesn’t have much to do as winter and spring come and go.
Being able to successfully make weapons shows Karana that she’s capable of being self-sufficient on the island. With her weapons, she can perform tasks that were once just for men, like hunting and fishing. And her descriptions of the landscape and animals suggest that these things do make her happy—but for now, she’s too lonely to appreciate them as much as she might otherwise.
Themes
