The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket · Chapter
XXI explained
Pym and Peters escape being buried alive after a cave-in, discover the body of their companion Allen, and climb to safety.
What happens
Pym and Peters escape being buried alive after a cave-in, discover the body of their companion Allen, and climb to safety. From a vantage point, they realize the entire gorge has been deliberately collapsed by the natives using stakes and vines, killing their thirty-two companions. They conclude they are the only white survivors on the island.
Themes in this chapter
Survival and Moral Decay
Pym and Peters struggle to survive entombment and later abandon Allen's corpse, prioritizing their own escape.
Deception and Unreliable Narration
The natives' treachery is revealed through the deliberate collapse of the gorge, underscoring the theme of deceptive appearances.
Race and Otherness
The savages' orchestrated massacre highlights the racialized depiction of the islanders as treacherous and hostile.
Characters to notice
- Arthur Gordon Pym
Narrates the escape from the cave-in and the discovery of the massacre.
- Dirk Peters
Buried up to his middle in earth; Pym helps free him; proposes exploring for escape and later suggests firing pistols for rescue.
- Wilson Allen
Found dead, buried beneath rubble; left behind by Pym and Peters.
Key passages
“I firmly believed that no incident ever occurring in the course of human events is more adapted to inspire the supremeness of mental and bodily distress than a case like our own, of living inhumation.”
Pym reflects that being buried alive is the most extreme form of mental and physical suffering possible.
Highlights the horror of entombment and the psychological impact on the characters.
“The fate of our poor companions was no longer a matter of uncertainty. We alone had escaped from the tempest of that overwhelming destruction. We were the only living white men upon the island.”
Pym and Peters realize that all their companions have been killed in the landslide, leaving them as the sole white survivors on the island.
Conveys the finality of the massacre and the isolation of the protagonists.