Over the course of her 18 years spent alone on the Island of the Blue Dolphins, Karana—who’s stranded on the island at age 12, after white men take the rest of her tribe away—goes back and forth between enjoying her solitude and hating it. Her solitude (or, at least, not having to function as part of a tribe) gives her the freedom to explore her home, pursue things that interest her (such as hunting the elusive devilfish), and learn how to be totally self-sufficient. But despite all of Karana’s animal friends, she still sometimes finds her solitude oppressive—she spends a lot of time, especially during her last two years on the island, wishing only to hear the sound of another person’s voice. With this, Island of the Blue Dolphins presents solitude as both a blessing and a curse. Being alone, Karana finds, offers her the freedom to live her life in a way that suits her and makes her happy, even while her freedom sometimes—or at the same time—feels like a sort of prison.
Over her first year on the island, Karana finds her newfound solitude horrifying. At first, Karana isn’t willing to accept that she’s going to be alone on the island for very long; she believes that the ship that took the rest of her tribe away is going to return for her, as promised. So, it takes a long time for her to accept that she’s actually alone—and these first six months or so, before she accepts that fact, are extremely difficult. Karana resists making any permanent dwellings and gathering food for the winter, since she believes she’s not going to be on the island that long. Ultimately, her loneliness becomes so all-encompassing that she decides to take a canoe and head for the mainland on her own, something that illustrates just how ill at ease she is with her solitude. But when, a day into her journey, Karana’s canoe proves to be in a condition that makes it dangerous to continue, Karana decides to turn back—and with this, she accepts her solitude on the island. Upon returning to the island and hiking back to the headland where she eventually chooses to build her home, Karana feels happy. With this development, the novel suggests that Karana’s happiness comes from choosing to accept her circumstances and live alone (she doesn’t, after all, throw herself into trying to leave the island a second time). Put another way, her solitude is easier to accept when it feels like a choice Karana made voluntarily.
Once Karana accepts that she’s going to live alone on the island, she discovers that being alone allows her to find happiness in ways that are brand new to her. Before, while functioning as part of the tribe, Karana had to do whatever the rest of the tribe needed her to do. On her own, however, Karana doesn’t have to be responsible to a group. When it’s just her, Karana still needs to spend much of her spring and summer gathering food in preparation for winter—but she can also throw herself into other exciting tasks she couldn’t do before, such as hunting the devilfish (a giant octopus) and hunting cormorants at Tall Rock. She still has responsibilities; she spends most of her mornings gathering food, for instance. But in the afternoons, Karana does as she pleases—and she finds happiness in paddling around the island, exploring sea caves, and befriending various animals. And as Karana crafts several homes for herself, gathers food and supplies, and makes weapons—mostly things she’s never had to do, or been able to do, before—Karana becomes increasingly happy and confident. Her solitude allows her to test her limits and see how much she can do. And it’s extremely gratifying to discover that she can, for instance, craft a special spear for spearing devilfish, and rework a canoe to make it easier to handle. Doing all the things necessary to survive on her own shows Karana what she’s capable of, and being so self-sufficient makes many of her years on the island pass happily and mostly without incident.
However, Karana also struggles off and on—and more so during her final years on the island—with the crushing desire to be around other humans again, suggesting her solitude, while fun for a while, is untenable in the long term. Things become especially difficult for Karana after Rontu dies and Tutok, an Aleut girl traveling with Aleut hunters whom Karana befriends briefly, leaves the island. Particularly after meeting Tutok, Karana finds that getting to laugh and talk with another person only highlights her loneliness and solitude. And to cope with her loneliness, Karana regularly imagines conversations between herself and Tutok or her older sister, Ulape. Essentially, Karana goes out of her way to imagine that she’s not all alone, showing just how starved she is for human contact. So, Karana is more than ready to leave the island when, finally, Catholic missionaries return for her after 18 years on the island. Though she doesn’t understand their language and hates the dress they make her wear, the missionaries are still people—people who are, Karana believes, going to free her from her prison of solitude.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Solitude ThemeTracker
Solitude Quotes in Island of the Blue Dolphins
It was a pleasant place to stay, there on the headland. The stars were bright overhead and I lay and counted the ones that I knew and gave names to the many that I did not know.
In the morning the gulls flew out from their nests in the crevices of the cliff. They circled down to the tide pools where they stood first on one leg and then the other, splashing water over themselves and combing their feathers with curved beaks. Then they flew off down the shore to look for food. Beyond the kelp beds pelicans were already hunting, soaring high over the clear water, diving straight down, if they sighted a fish, to strike the sea with a great splash that I could hear.
The thought of being alone on the island while so many suns rose from the sea and went slowly back into the sea filled my heart with loneliness. I had not felt so lonely before because I was sure that the ship would return as Matasaip had said it would. Now my hopes were dead. Now I was really alone. I could not eat much, nor could I sleep without dreaming terrible dreams.
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.
I looked out at the blue water stretching away and all the fear I had felt during the time of the voyage came back to me. On the morning I first sighted the island and it had seemed like a great fish sunning itself, I thought that someday I would make the canoe over and go out once more to look for the country that lay beyond the ocean. Now I knew that I would never go out again.
The Island of the Blue Dolphins was my home; I had no other. It would be my home until the white men returned in their ship.
On the first day of spring I went down to Coral Cove with my new spear. I knew it was spring because that morning at dawn the sky was filled with flocks of darting birds. They were small and black and came only at this time of year. They came out of the south and stayed for two suns, hunting food in the ravines, and then flew off in one great flight toward the north.
Often I would put on the skirt and the sandals and walk along the cliff with Rontu. Sometimes I made a wreath of flowers and fastened it in my hair. After the Aleuts had killed our men at Coral Cove, all the women of our tribe had singed their hair short as a sign of mourning. I had singed mine, too, with a faggot, but now it had grown long again and came to my waist. I parted it and let it fall down my back, except when I wore a wreath. Then I made braids and fastened them with long whalebone pins.
I also made a wreath for Rontu’s neck, which he did not like. Together we would walk along the cliff looking at the sea, and though the white men’s ship did not return that spring, it was a happy time. The air smelled of flowers and birds sang everywhere.
The star passed out of sight and another took its place. The tide lifted the canoe higher in the room, and as the water lapped against the walls it sounded like the soft music of a flute. It played many tunes through the long night and I slept little, watching the stars change. I knew that the skeleton who sat on the ledge playing his flute was one of my ancestors, and the others with the glittering eyes, though only images, were too, but still I was sleepless and afraid.
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.
