When 12-year-old Karana finds herself stranded with her brother on the Island of the Blue Dolphins, she figures she and six-year-old Ramo will be able to survive until the ship that took the rest of their tribe away returns. But when wild dogs kill Ramo a day later, Karana finds herself totally alone—and vows to take revenge by killing all the wild dogs on the island. Ultimately, though, Karana’s desire to live by herself wanes, and over the course of the 18 years she spends on the island, she makes friends with two wild dogs, birds, otters, and a fox—in addition to Tutok, a visiting Aleut girl. Through Karana’s unlikely friendships with these creatures and people, the novel suggests that, if a person is willing to look, there are friends waiting to be made everywhere. All alone on the island and in desperate need of companionship, Karana realizes that companionship is necessary for her happiness. She also discovers that it’s possible to make friends with nearly anyone, if she’s willing to put aside her preconceived notions about a person or animal, look for all the things they might have in common, and take the risk of becoming their friend.
At first, Karana and her tribe have very distinct ideas about who and what beings are friendship material. When the Aleuts and Captain Orlov arrive to hunt otter around the Island of the Blue Dolphins, Karana’s father, Chief Chowig, instructs the tribe to steer clear of the Aleuts. He insists that the tribe can profit by allowing the Aleuts to hunt—but he says forcefully that “we shall not profit if we try to befriend them. They are people who do not understand friendship.” His reasoning is that the Aleuts speak a different language and are, in so many ways, too different from the Nicoleños to befriend. This sets up the idea that Karana’s tribe is somewhat prejudiced against outsiders—though in the case of the Aleuts, who ultimately murder many of the tribe’s men, Karana decides the tribe was right to proceed with caution and suspicion. Once she’s stranded on the island by herself, Karana also makes judgments about animals on the island. When the wild dogs kill Ramo less than a day after they’re stranded, Karana vows to kill them—especially the dogs’ leader, whom she believes came to the island with the Aleuts. As with the Aleuts themselves, Karana has every reason to hate the dogs, fear them, and want nothing to do with them—but ultimately, she finds her lonely situation unsustainable.
The novel suggests that when a person is extremely lonely, people and animals who once seemed too different to befriend can start to look like potential friends. Though Karana follows through with shooting the wild dogs’ leader, when she discovers two days later that he isn’t dead yet—and when he doesn’t fight back—she brings him home with her, against her better judgment. And over the next few days, as she nurses the dog back to health, Karana discovers that the dog—whom she names Rontu—has become a friend. They spend the next several years nearly inseparable, hunting together, journeying together in Karana’s canoe, and walking along the cliffs to admire the sunset. And while Karana is unwilling to voice outright why she ultimately decides to keep Rontu rather than kill him, she suggests that she was too lonely without another creature to keep her company. Karana goes through much the same transformation when she befriends an Aleut girl named Tutok. Tutok accompanies the Aleut hunters when they come to the island to hunt otter, and one day, she stumbles upon Karana outside Karana’s cave. At first, Karana is frightened by Tutok and so is cold and rude to her—Tutok is an Aleut, after all, and Karana still fears and blames the Aleuts for killing her friends and neighbors. But over the next few days, as the girls exchange gifts and words in each other’s languages, Karana starts to consider Tutok a friend. And when Tutok ultimately leaves the island, Karana continues to think of her often and craves the company of another person like Tutok. Karana’s loneliness makes her desire for friendship even more pronounced.
Though Karana’s loneliness isn’t remedied by the end of the novel (even though she ultimately leaves with Catholic missionaries, it’s unclear if Karana ever finds her tribe again), she discovers that she can counteract her loneliness to some degree by treating animals as either friends or potential friends. Over the 18 years that Karana spends on the island, she befriends not just Rontu, but Rontu’s son, Rontu-Aru, in addition to various birds, foxes, and otter. Eventually, Karana decides to never kill another animal on the island (save for fish and shellfish). She states that “animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.” In addition, she justifies her choice by saying that the other animals on the island could, in time, become her friends and are more than just a source of food, sinew, or weaponry. Karana’s new beliefs about befriending animals suggest that in dire circumstances like hers, a person’s need for companionship can force them to look outside where they’d normally look for friends and befriend beings they never would’ve thought to befriend in other circumstances. Though Karana hints that there’s no real substitute for human companionship (she longs for human friends and to hear other human voices until she finally leaves the island), her animal friends provide necessary, welcome proof that Karana isn’t alone in the world.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Friendship ThemeTracker
Friendship Quotes in Island of the Blue Dolphins
“The Aleuts come from a country far to the north,” he said. “Their ways are not ours nor is their language. They have come to take otter and to give us our share in many goods which they have and which we can use. In this way we shall profit. But we shall not profit if we try to befriend them. They are people who do not understand friendship.”
Many of our tribe went to the cliff each night to count the number killed during the day. They counted the dead otter and thought of the beads and other things that each pelt meant. But I never went to the cove and whenever I saw the hunters with their long spears skimming over the water, I was angry, for these animals were my friends. It was fun to see them playing or sunning themselves among the kelp. It was more fun than the thought of beads to wear around my neck.
I felt as if I had been gone a long time as I stood there looking down from the high rock. I was happy to be home. Everything that I saw—the otter playing in the kelp, the rings of foam around the rocks that guarded the harbor, the gulls flying, the tides moving past the sandspit—filled me with happiness.
Why I did not send the arrow I cannot say. I stood on the rock with the bow pulled back and my hand would not let it go. The big dog lay there and did not move and this may be the reason. If he had gotten up I would have killed him. I stood there for a long time looking down at him and then I climbed off the rocks.
I watched her go through the brush. I stood for a long time listening to her footsteps, until I could hear them no more, and then I went to the headland and brought the baskets back to the cave.
Tutok came again the next day. We sat on the rock in the bright sun, trading words and laughing. The sun went fast in the sky. The time came soon when she had to leave, but she returned on the day that followed. It was on this day, when she was leaving, that I told her my secret name.
“Karana,” I said, pointing to myself.
At first, knowing that I could now leave the cave and move back into my house on the headland, I was happy. But as I stood there on the high rock looking down at the deserted harbor and the empty sea, I began to think of Tutok. I thought of all the times we had sat in the sun together. I could hear her voice and see her black eyes squinting closed when she laughed.
Below me, Rontu was running along the cliff, barking at the screaming gulls. Pelicans were chattering as they fished the blue water. Far off I could hear the bellow of a sea elephant. But suddenly, as I thought of Tutok, the island seemed very quiet.
On sunny days I would wear them with my cormorant dress and the necklace, and walk along the cliff with Rontu.
I often thought of Tutok, but on these days especially I would look off into the north and wish that she were here to see me. I could hear her talking in her strange language and I would make up things to say to her and things for her to say to me.
Ulape would have laughed at me, and others would have laughed, too—my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, but in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the others had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.
We had many happy times that summer, fishing and going to Tall Rock in our canoe, but more and more now I thought of Tutok and my sister Ulape. Sometimes I would hear their voices in the wind and often, when I was on the sea, in the waves that lapped softly against the canoe.
I came to the mound where my ancestors had sometimes camped in the summer. I thought of them and of the happy times spent in my house on the headland, of my canoe lying unfinished beside the trail. I thought of many things, but stronger was the wish to be where people lived, to hear their voices and their laughter.
Then one of the two men who stood behind him spoke to me. His words made the strangest sounds I have ever heard. At first I wanted to laugh, but I bit my tongue.
I shook my head and smiled at him. He spoke again, slowly this time, and though his words sounded the same as before and meant nothing to me, they now seemed sweet. They were the sound of a human voice. There is no sound like this in all the world.
