The Blue Lagoon · Chapter
XVI: The Cyclone explained
A massive cyclone strikes the island, tearing away their house and forcing Dick, Emmeline, and the baby to cling to the roots of a breadfruit tree.
What happens
A massive cyclone strikes the island, tearing away their house and forcing Dick, Emmeline, and the baby to cling to the roots of a breadfruit tree. The storm's center passes over, offering a brief eerie calm filled with birds and butterflies, before the full fury resumes. By dawn the storm is gone, leaving destruction and dead birds in its wake.
Themes in this chapter
The Sublime and Terrible Nature
The cyclone is depicted as both awe-inspiring and destructive, reducing the characters to frightened animals and revealing nature's overwhelming power.
Isolation and Survival
Dick, Emmeline, and the baby are utterly alone on the island, clinging to life as the storm destroys their shelter and tests their endurance.
Characters to notice
- Dick
Stands at the doorway watching the storm approach, then shelters with Emmeline and the baby; after the house is torn away, he clings to the breadfruit roots.
- Emmeline
Holds the baby to her breast throughout the storm, shivering and cowed; she senses the cyclone's approach before it hits.
- Hannah
The baby, held by Emmeline; cries at first but becomes impassive and dazed during the cyclone.
Key passages
“The terror and the prolonged shock of it reduced them from thinking beings to the level of frightened animals whose one instinct is preservation.”
The prolonged terror stripped them of rational thought, leaving only a primal survival instinct.
Highlights the psychological impact of the cyclone.
“In the dead centre of a cyclone one is in perfect peace. The trouble is all around, but it is not here.”
At the cyclone's center there is absolute calm, even though the storm rages on every side.
Describes the paradoxical calm within the storm's eye.