The Swiss Family Robinson · Chapter
Chapter XVII explained
Father and Fritz return to the wrecked vessel to salvage useful goods, constructing a raft from water casks and planks to transport tools, plants, and supplies.
What happens
Father and Fritz return to the wrecked vessel to salvage useful goods, constructing a raft from water casks and planks to transport tools, plants, and supplies. They spend the night aboard, and the next day they prioritize practical items over luxury, including fruit trees, iron, and a sawmill. Ernest and Jack briefly surprise them, but are sent back to comfort their mother. The chapter emphasizes resourcefulness, gratitude to Providence, and the rejection of gold in favor of useful industry.
Themes in this chapter
Resourcefulness and Industry
Father and Fritz construct a raft from water casks and planks, prioritize tools and plants over gold, and demonstrate practical ingenuity throughout the salvage.
Gratitude and Contentment
They wake with 'lively gratitude to Providence' for a safe night, and Fritz's rejection of useless money shows contentment with what is truly needed.
Characters to notice
- Father
Leads the salvage operation, prioritizes practical goods over luxury, and sends Ernest and Jack back to comfort their mother.
- Fritz
Assists in loading the raft, suggests using harpoons and a windlass, and lends his silver watch to Ernest.
- Ernest
Surprises Father with Jack, suggests the raft design using water casks, and receives a silver watch from Fritz.
- Jack
Accompanies Ernest to surprise Father, is sent back with a message for Mother, and is promised a watch later.
- Mother
Anxious about the trips to the vessel, left in tears praying for their safe return.
Key passages
“It gives me pleasure, my boy, to hear you speak thus of gold, that idol so universally adored: we will do, then, as you wish, and determine upon taking with us what is really useful, such as the powder, lead, iron, the corn and the fruit-trees, implements for gardening and agriculture”
Father praises Fritz for rejecting gold and agrees to focus on practical supplies like tools, seeds, and plants.
Highlights the theme of valuing utility over luxury.
“I beheld with a feeling I cannot describe, those productions of my dear country, which once so agreeably embellished my rural dwelling, and which, if God vouchsafed to bless them, would thrive in a foreign soil.”
Father feels deep emotion seeing European fruit trees, hoping they will grow in their new home.
Connects to themes of colonization and divine blessing.
“We rose, and actively set to work to load our raft. In the first place we completely stripped the cabin which had been occupied by my family on board the vessel, removing everything it contained which belonged to us previous to the fatal event of the wreck”
They wake early and begin loading the raft with their family's belongings from the ship.
Shows their industriousness and the urgency of salvage.