Island of the Blue Dolphins
Publication Date: 1960
About the Author
Scott O'Dell was born on May 23, 1903, in Los Angeles, California. Because his father was a railroad man, the family moved often in the Los Angeles area, living for a time in San Pedro and on Rattlesnake Island, where O'Dell acquired a feeling for the frontier and the sea. The many sea adventures he shared with his boyhood friends influenced the writing of Island of the Blue Dolphins. Elementary and high school fascinated O'Dell but college did not. He attended Occidental College, the University of Wisconsin, and Stanford University, taking only courses that interested him, without trying for a degree; for a short time he also attended the University of Rome. In Rome, after his experimentation with university life, he became a cameraman, assisting with the filming of Ben-Hur. He became a full-time writer in 1934 after working as a book editor for a Los Angeles newspaper. For more than two decades—interrupted by a short period during World War II when he served in the U.S. Air Force—he wrote fiction and nonfiction for adults. He later turned to juvenile fiction, after finding it more enjoyable than writing for adults.
O'Dell is best known as a writer of literature for young adults; since the publication of Island of the Blue Dolphins, for which he won the Newbery Medal, he has enjoyed a secure reputation among readers and literary critics. O'Dell died on October 15, 1989, in Mount Kisco, New York.
Overview
Island of the Blue Dolphins appeals to readers in several ways. It is a story based on actual events, a kind of adventure that makes people ask themselves how they would have behaved in similar circumstances. Narrated in the first person, the book reads more like a realistic account than a work of fiction. Rich with history and information about plant and animal life, the novel is also full of ingenious ideas for survival and for entertainment in isolation. The work's most endearing qualities are its sense of humor and its humaneness.
Page after page, O'Dell offers imaginative solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems. Although the story takes place over a century ago, Island of the Blue Dolphins has a timeless appeal because of the author's artistry in communicating his love for the sea.
Setting
Island of the Blue Dolphins is based on the true story of The Lost Woman of San Nicolas, who lived alone on an island from 1835 to 1853. The novel begins on a small island in the Pacific Ocean, seventy-five miles southwest of presentday Los Angeles. Karana, a twelve-yearold girl who lives in the village of Ghalas-at, and her six-year-old brother, Ramo, are gathering roots near a small harbor called Coral Cove. A ship with two red sails appears, causing a stir among the inhabitants of the village. Karana's father, Chief Chowig, reluctantly enters an agreement with the ship's captain, a Russian named Orlov, whereby Captain Orlov and his Aleut hunters may hunt otter if they give half their catch to the villagers. When Orlov and his crew violate the terms of the bargain, a skirmish follows. Twenty-seven of the forty-two Ghalas-at men are killed, including Chowig; Captain Orlov and his crew escape to their ship and leave Coral Cove. The new chief, Kimki, leaves the island in search of a place for the villagers to live. He does not return, but a ship of white men arrives, sent by Kimki to rescue his people. Karana boards with the others from her island and discovers that Ramo is not with them; against the pleas of her people, she leaps into the water and swims ashore. By the time she arrives on land, where she finds Ramo at the edge of the water, the ship has disappeared, never to return. Her brother is soon killed by wild dogs, and Karana lives on the island for eighteen years before a ship appears to rescue her. Most of the story takes place on the island during Karana's years of solitary survival.
Themes and Characters
Karana, the main character of the story, exhibits extraordinary courage and resourcefulness during her years alone on the island. The characters who make up her family appear only in the story's beginning and are presented with no real depth: her father, Chowig, is the dignified, wise chief of the village; her older sister, Ulape, is intelligent, but more flirtatious than Karana; her brother, Ramo, is an endearing mixture of pride, ingenuity, and mischief.
The narrative focuses on Karana's mental and emotional reactions to her predicament. Initially, she experiences a sense of loss—the loss of loved ones, of the security of a social structure, of reliable sources of sustenance. Through her ordeal, Karana gradually achieves a sense of self-reliance and acquires a degree of order. The need for some kind of community leads the girl to form a "family," by rescuing and taming wild creatures: an orphaned otter, two birds, and, most significantly, the wild dog that she initially sought to destroy in revenge for its pack having killed her brother. She names the dog Rontu, and he becomes her friend and protector.
Karana's growing aversion to unnecessary killing develops the theme of community. She chooses to rescue and domesticate the otter—a gesture of protest against the Aleuts and Russians who come from the north to massacre the otters for their fur—and decides not to shoot an arrow at a sea lion that could provide her with ivory needed for implements. She waits until two battling male sea lions provide her with a dead animal in the natural order of things. These decisions culminate in her refraining from killing the enemy Aleut girl, Tutok. Even though Karana is especially afraid of the girl, who might betray her to the other Aleuts, she withholds her weapons, and a fruitful friendship ensues. In the cases of both Rontu and Tutok, Karana's ability to put compassion and forgiveness above vengeance is rewarded by friendship. But her friendship with Tutok causes Karana to feel more deeply her need for human society, and after her friend's departure, Karana looks forward with renewed intensity to the day of her rescue.
The novel's primary concern is Karana's personal development. Living under conditions of extreme duress, she gradually sheds attitudes and traits that inhibit the full growth of her mature personality. In overcoming her earlier limitations—feelings of hatred and desire for revenge—she acquires the virtues of understanding, compassion, forgiveness, and love.
Island of the Blue Dolphins reflects O'Dell's concern about the natural world and people's tendency to exploit and destroy the environment—especially the wanton killing of sea otters and other forms of wildlife. Drawing on French philosopher Albert Schweitzer's concept of "reverence for life," O'Dell emphasizes the importance of taking from the environment only what one needs in order to live and of learning to cherish and live amicably with the other creatures of the world. He urges readers to respect and learn to understand nature. The chief enemies in his stories are ignorance, hatred, and lust for profit. To counteract ignorance, O'Dell fills his books with fascinating details of natural history; he shows how, through understanding, hatred and fear can be transformed into respect. The lust for profit figures prominently in O'Dell's work, where greed corrupts better human impulses and often destroys the characters who harbor it.
Literary Qualities
Island of the Blue Dolphins is narrated from the first-person point of view. O'Dell's artistry consists in great part in his ability to allow his characters to tell the story. O'Dell has Karana draw her images and facts from the only world she knows, that of a very small island in a very large sea. Her words and simple similes seem entirely appropriate to a teen-aged Native American girl who has spent her life on a small island. She speaks and thinks in terms of rocks, sand, sea, wind, birds, and fish. O'Dell taps the inherent beauty of this perspective to render a rich portrayal of Karana's experiences and feelings. Her innocence also gives the narrative simplicity and directness; the reader knows no more or less than Karana and is therefore drawn into the events almost as a participant as the story unfolds.
O'Dell excels at character development, and one of the novel's finest achievements is the convincing and seemingly natural change in Karana's personality during the course of the narrative. She develops attitudes and experiences emotions that often have to be inferred from her understated manner of expression. For example, she does not try to explain her reluctance to kill the wild dog after she has gone to such trouble to track him down and wound him. But the reader understands her motivation because, while O'Dell avoids explicit statements or explanations, he carefully selects a few gestures and images that convey meaning by strong suggestion. This method of characterization is evident at the end of the story as well when the reader realizes that Karana's need for social approval and love has survived during her years of isolation. The existence of this need is reflected in her efforts to make herself attractive—donning an otter cape and a skirt of cormorant feathers—and in a moving scene following her rescue, where she wears the facial markings announcing that she is still unmarried.
Social Sensitivity
Karana's story takes place on an island where she is isolated from civilization. Her best friend, Rontu, is from the pack of dogs that killed her brother Ramo; doubly significant in the measure of her forgiveness is that Rontu comes from the Aleut tribe responsible for the deaths of so many of her people. Karana's forgiving nature surfaces again when she becomes friends with Tutok, the Aleut girl.
Karana learns not to judge an individual by a tribe or a tribe by an individual. Her rejection of prejudice—based on her personal experiences, not on the lessons of her people—is the foundation for her developing love for all creatures, human and animal. Although her solitude ironically teaches her social sensitivity, it also emphasizes her need for human society.
Island of the Blue Dolphins is particularly noteworthy for its portrayal of a very strong female character. O'Dell refused to follow agents' and editors' requests that he change his Karana to a boy, and since the novel's publication in 1960, many books with strong female protagonists have appeared.
Topics for Discussion
1. What are the sources for the figurative language used by Karana?
2. What foreshadowing is there that the Aleuts have brought trouble along with them?
3. What gives the Island of the Blue Dolphins its name?
4. If the Ghalas-at villagers had shared the white bass with the Aleuts, would the Aleuts have honored the terms of their agreement? Should the villagers have shared the fish?
5. What bearing does Ramo's death have on the eventual change in Karana?
6. What difficulties does Karana first encounter in making a home for herself?
7. Why does Karana's attempt to flee the island fail?
8. Why does Karana decide to take Rontu into her home?
9. What evidence is there that Karana is gradually changing in her sympathies with human and animal life? Give specific examples.
10. What common interests and emotions do Karana and Tutok, her supposed enemy, have?
11. What statement in the last chapter best explains Karana's need for human society?
Ideas for Reports and Papers
1. Write a review of the 1963 film of the Island of the Blue Dolphins. How does it differ from the novel?
2. Research the history of the Ghalasat and the true story of The Lost Woman of San Nicolas, on which O'Dell's novel is based. Report on this history and discuss the accuracy of the novel's descriptions of tribal beliefs and customs.
3. Give an imaginary account of the life of Karana after her rescue from the Island of the Blue Dolphins.
4. Report on the history of the Aleuts. Discuss whether or not they are presented realistically by O'Dell. Also, explain why it is reasonable that a Russian is a captain of the Aleuts.
5. Compare Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which is also about an individual stranded on an island, to Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Related Titles/Adaptations
Like Island of the Blue Dolphins, most of O'Dell's books are based on historical events or personal experiences. His fiction is solidly founded on facts and probabilities. Zia, a sequel to Island of the Blue Dolphins, maintains the same kind of restraint that marks the writing in the earlier book. Ironically, Karana cannot adjust to the society that rescues her from her island solitude. Not long after her return to the mainland, she retreats to a cave with her dog as her only companion. In a sense, she returns to her island, where she has known the only happiness in her short, strange life. The Black Pearl is also set in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Nicolas Island, and Sarah Bishop and Alexandra are stories of heroines with history as a backdrop. Child of Fire resembles Island of the Blue Dolphins only in that the central character is isolated from society.
A film version of Island of the Blue Dolphins was released in 1963. O'Dell was disappointed with what the directors and screenwriters did with the story. He felt, with good reason, that the portrayal of Karana impaired her development as a character. The film focuses on the externals of island life rather than on the all-important changes and growth that take place within Karana during her solitary years.
For Further Reference
Buell, Ellen Lewis. "Review." New York Times Book Review (March 22, 1960): 40-41. Summation of Island of the Blue Dolphins and its sources; commentary on style, theme, and substance.
Georgiou, Constantine. Children and Their Literature. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1969. For readers of all ages, this work includes commentary on O'Dell's masterful use of his source material.
Jackson, Charlotte. "Review." San Francisco Chronicle (May 8, 1960). A positive review that praises the restraint of O'Dell's style.
Kingston, Carolyn T. "The Tragic Moment: Loss." In The Tragic Mode in Children's Literature. New York: Teachers College Press, 1974. Mature examination of Island of the Blue Dolphins as tragedy.
Libby, M. S. "Girls' Romances of Today and Yesterday." New York Herald Tribune Books (May 8, 1960): 8. An appreciative review concentrating on the sources of the book's appeal.
Meigs, Cornelia, et al. A Critical History of Children's Literature. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1969. Contains a chapter that treats Island of the Blue Dolphins in the context of survival stories and considers it "unusual…both for subject and for beauty of literary style."
Milton, Joyce. "Beyond the Blue Dolphins." Washington Post Book World (May 2, 1976): 12. More a review of Zia, this provides insightful commentary on both books.
Stott, Jon C. "Narrative Technique and Meaning in Island of the Blue Dolphins." Elementary English 52 (April 1975): 442-446. Detailed analysis. mainly for teachers. This is a useful reference for explaining the frame of the book to students.
Sutherland, Zena. "Review." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (April 1960): 134. This summary and commentary on Island of the Blue Dolphins for teachers criticizes the book's devotion to detail but generally speaks well of the novel.
Wersba, Barbara. "Review." New York Times Book Review (May 2, 1976): 38. Speaks of the success of both Island of the Blue Dolphins and Zia.
More Books by Scott O'Dell
Island of the Blue Dolphins, 1960
The King's Fifth, 1966
The Black Pearl, 1967
The Dark Canoe, 1968
Journey to Jericho, 1969
Sing Down the Moon, 1970
The Treasure of Topo-el-Bampo. 1972
The Cruise of the Arctic Star, 1973
Child of Fire. 1974
The Hawk That Dare Not Hunt by Day, 1975
Zia, 1976
The Two Hundred Ninety, 1976
Carlota, 1977
Kathleen, Please Come Home, 1978
The Captive, 1979
Sarah Bishop, 1980
The Feathered Serpent, 1981
The Spanish Smile, 1982
The Amethyst Ring, 1983
The Castle in the Sea, 1983
Alexandra, 1984
The Road to Damietta, 1985
Streams to the River, River to the Sea: A Novel of Sacagawea, 1986
David Powell
Western New Mexico University
Glenn S. Burne
University of North Carolina at Charlotte