Short Fiction · Chapter
Sketch Tenth: Runaways, Castaways, Solitaries, Gravestones, etc. explained
This sketch explores the Enchanted Isles as a refuge for runaways, castaways, and solitaries, detailing the harsh conditions, the relics of hermitages, and the grim reality of death and burial on the islands.
What happens
This sketch explores the Enchanted Isles as a refuge for runaways, castaways, and solitaries, detailing the harsh conditions, the relics of hermitages, and the grim reality of death and burial on the islands. It recounts stories of desperate survival, including a man who drank from a seal's wound and another who escaped on inflated seal skins, and describes the post-offices and gravestones that mark the desolate landscape.
Themes in this chapter
Isolation and Alienation
The isles are depicted as a place of extreme solitude, where hermits and runaways live in desolate isolation, often abandoned by society and left to fend for themselves.
Nature and Desolation
The harsh, barren landscape of the Enchanted Isles—scorching sun, lack of water, and tangled interiors—dominates the chapter, emphasizing the unforgiving power of nature.
Justice and Injustice
The chapter highlights the injustice of tyrannical ship captains who abandon seamen to perish on the isles, and the desperate measures men take to escape oppression.
Characters to notice
- Oberlus
His hut partially remains at the head of the clinkered valley, a relic of his solitary life.
- The Narrator (Encantadas)
The narrator recounts personal knowledge of a man lost on Narborough Isle who survived by drinking from a seal's wound.
Key passages
“A sullen hatred of the tyrannic ship will seize the sailor, and he gladly exchanges it for isles, which, though blighted as by a continual sirocco and burning breeze, still offer him, in their labyrinthine interior, a retreat beyond the possibility of capture.”
Sailors who grow to hate their oppressive ship willingly trade it for the desolate but hidden islands, where they can escape capture.
This illustrates the theme of authority and rebellion, as sailors flee tyranny for a harsh but free existence.
“He rushed upon it, stabbed it in the neck, and then throwing himself upon the panting body quaffed at the living wound; the palpitations of the creature’s dying heart injected life into the drinker.”
A man lost on Narborough Isle saved himself from dying of thirst by killing a seal and drinking its blood directly from the wound.
This vivid description underscores the extreme measures required for survival in the desolate isles.
“Here, in 1813, fell, in a daybreak duel, a lieutenant of the U.S. frigate Essex , aged twenty-one: attaining his majority in death.”
A 21-year-old lieutenant from the U.S. frigate Essex died in a duel at dawn on James's Isle in 1813, reaching adulthood only through his death.
This gravestone inscription highlights the tragic and premature deaths that occur on the islands.