Island of the Blue Dolphins tells the story of 12-year-old Karana, a member of the Nicoleño tribe living on the Island of the Blue Dolphins—San Nicolas Island—off the coast of California. Life is idyllic on the small island until a ship comes to take most of Karana’s tribe away—and she and her six-year-old brother, Ramo, end up stranded there. When Ramo dies a day later, Karana finds herself totally alone. Over the next 18 years that she spends on the island, Karana befriends a number of animals and lives her life in tune with the seasons. For Karana, the natural world isn’t something to dominate. Rather, it’s something to admire, a giving force that can provide everything she needs to survive, and something to respect and care for—even as it can also be frightening and destructive.
Island of the Blue Dolphins presents the natural world as a living, breathing, almost human entity throughout the novel, one worthy of admiration and respect. Much of Karana’s narration consists of simple descriptions of the island’s landscape and that of the surrounding ocean and kelp beds. It quickly becomes clear that if Karana doesn’t know every inch of the island when she’s first stranded, she’s going to become familiar with it all—she takes note of every spring, every hidden cave, and every reef where she spends her time and gathers her food. Her tone throughout the novel is one of admiration for the natural world; it’s something that, on the whole, delights her. She details the flowers in the spring, the powerful storms in the winter, and her joy at being able to explore the kelp beds and reef on her canoe. All of this gives the impression that, for Karana, the natural world itself is her constant companion. The land and sea themselves might be inanimate, but they’re full of wonders that entertain, nourish, and protect Karana like another person might.
Karana’s understanding of how to work with the natural world is what enables her to survive on the island for 18 years, totally alone. Out of necessity, Karana lives her life according to the seasons. In the spring and summer, when the weather is pleasant and the sea is safe to go out on in her canoe, Karana spends her mornings gathering food to dry and store for winter. Then, in the fall and winter, she’s able to spend her time inside, comfortable after all the preparations she’s made, and craft clothing, weapons, and other supplies that will allow her to start the cycle again in the spring. In this way, Karana shows how in tune she is with the natural world around her—were she not attuned to nature, it seems likely she wouldn’t be able to survive. And as a single person on the island, Karana isn’t able to rely on simple manpower to accomplish tasks, as some of the villagers did when they lived on the island. For instance, Karana knows full well that as a single girl, it will probably be impossible for her to kill a sea elephant, a task that always took at least three men—and often ended in failure, even for a large group. So, Karana has to find ways to let the natural world do the hard work for her. While it is, perhaps, luck that Karana happens to visit the sea elephants on a day when two bulls fight to the death (which gives Karana the opportunity to go back days later and collect the teeth she needs), the fact remains that because she knows how to let nature take its course, she doesn’t have to work as hard or put herself in danger like she might otherwise. This is also how she manages to get items like the whale ribs she uses to build her fence—she’s incapable of killing a whale, especially on her own, but she knows that whales were washed ashore years ago and is able to harvest their ribs for her own use because of this knowledge.
As giving and as beautiful as the natural world is, though, Karana still finds that it’s something that demands respect—as it is still dangerous. Karana lives the first year or so on the island in fear of the island’s wild dogs, which killed her brother and continue to stalk her incessantly. But especially once Karana captures and befriends the dogs’ leader, Rontu, the dogs—which initially seem extremely sinister and dangerous—become the least of her worries. Karana develops more respect for the dangerous natural world when she and Rontu attempt to spear a giant devilfish (octopus), an endeavor that doesn’t go well for anyone involved. The lengthy process of killing the devilfish leaves Karana and Rontu covered in cuts and bruises—and ultimately, Karana is too tired to even drag the devilfish, whose meat is a delicacy, back home so she can eat it. Some beings in nature, she finds, are simply too big, and too dangerous, to mess with. Karana’s respect for the natural world increases again when, several years before she leaves the island, she and her second dog, Rontu-Aru, weather a tidal wave and then hours of earthquakes. While the sea once fed Karana and was her friend, the tidal wave turns it into a dangerous enemy intent on carrying her out to sea. The earthquake, meanwhile, makes it almost impossible for Karana and Rontu-Aru to make it back to their house, as the tremors seem to make the house move further and further away. In a way, the earthquake and the tidal wave make it clear that Karana can’t trust the natural world to be only giving and beautiful. It’s still dangerous, and even though it can also be beautiful and give someone everything they need to survive, it still demands respect from those who live in it.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Natural World ThemeTracker
The Natural World Quotes in Island of the Blue Dolphins
Behind in the boat stood a tall man with a yellow beard. I had never seen a Russian before, but my father had told me about them, and I wondered, seeing the way he stood with his feet set apart and his fists on his hips and looked at the little harbor as though it already belonged to him, if he were one of those men from the north whom our people feared. I was certain of it when the boat slid into the shore and he jumped out, shouting as he did so.
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.
As I lay there I wondered what would happen to me if I went against the law of our tribe, which forbade the making of weapons by women—if I did not think of it at all and made those things which I must have to protect myself.
Would the four winds blow in from the four directions of the world and smother me as I made the weapons? Or would the earth tremble, as many said, and bury me beneath its falling rocks? Or, as others said, would the sea rise over the island in a terrible flood? Would the weapons break in my hands at the moment when my life was in danger, which is what my father had said?
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.
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 was not sure what I would do if the Aleuts came. I could hide in the cave which I had stored with food and water, for it was surrounded by thick brush and the mouth of the ravine could only be reached from the sea. The Aleuts had not used the spring and did not know about it because there was another one closer to where they had camped. But they might come upon the cave by chance and then I must be ready to flee.
For this reason I worked on the canoe I had abandoned on the spit.
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.
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.
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.
Like two giants they crashed against each other. They rose high in the air, bending first one way and then the other. There was a roar as if great spears were breaking in battle, and in the red light of the sun the spray that flew around them looked like blood.
Slowly the second wave forced the first one backward, rolled slowly over it, and then as a victor drags the vanquished, moved in toward the island.
The wave struck the cliff. It sent long tongues streaming around me so that I could neither see nor hear. The tongues of water licked into all the crevices, dragged at my hand and at my bare feet gripping the ledge. They rose high above me along the face of the rock, up and up, and then spent themselves against the sky and fell back, hissing past me to join the water rushing on toward the cove.
Night came, but the earth still rose and fell like a great animal breathing. I could hear rocks tumbling from the cliff, falling down into the sea.
All night as we lay there in the house the earth trembled and rocks fell, yet not the big one on the headland, which would have fallen if those who make the world shake had really been angry with us.
