Island of the Blue Dolphins

“‘The Aleuts come from a country far to the north,’ he said. ‘Their ways are not ours nor is their language. They have come to take otter and to give us our share in many goods which they have and which we can use. In this way shall we profit. But we shall not profit if we try to befriend them. They are people who do not understand friendship. They are not those who were here before, but they are people of the same tribe that caused trouble many years ago.’”

Chief Chowig’s warning about the Aleuts provides insight into his character. Like his daughter Karana, he takes a practical approach to problems, such as when he establishes a profitable trade deal with the Aleuts. However, he is also protective and wary, which he demonstrates by telling his people not to trust the hunters. Chief Chowig’s words connect to the theme of friendship. His warning lingers in Karana’s memory years after his death and makes her reluctant to trust strangers. Ultimately, however, Karana disproves her father’s claim that the Aleuts are “people who do not understand friendship” through her relationship with Tutok.

“My sister Ulape, who was two years older than I, gathered the most curious news of all. She swore that there was an Aleut girl among the hunters. ‘She is dressed in skins just like the men,’ Ulape said. ‘But she wears a fur cap and under the cap she has thick hair that falls to her waist.’ No one believed Ulape. Everyone laughed at the idea that hunters would bother to bring their wives with them.”

Because of their society’s gender norms, the Ghalas-at villagers cannot imagine a woman making meaningful contributions during a hunt, let alone participating. Everyone laughs at Ulape’s report, not just the men of the village. This shows that the women have internalized their society’s beliefs about women’s capabilities. In order to survive on her own, Karana must defy tradition and engage in so-called “men’s work.”

“The otter likes to lie on its back in the kelp beds, floating up and down to the motion of the waves, sunning itself or sleeping. They are the most playful animals in the sea. It was these creatures that the Aleuts hunted for their pelts.”

The juxtaposition of Karana’s fond fascination with otters and the brutal way the Aleuts hunt them for fur is deliberately jarring. Her detailed descriptions of the creatures’ habits and personalities show her love of nature, and her disapproval of the Aleuts’ actions foreshadows her decision to swear off hunting toward the novel’s end. This connects to the theme of Learning from Nature because the otters teach Karana to respect all living things.

“My father lay on the beach and the waves were already washing over him. Looking at his body I knew he should not have told Captain Orlov his secret name, and back in our village all the weeping women and the sad men agreed that this had so weakened him that he had not lived through the fight with the Aleuts and the dishonest Russian.”

In Chapter 1, Karana foreshadowed Chief Chowig’s death by expressing concern about her father’s decision to share his secret name with Captain Orlov. At times, Karana’s narration conveys a sense of emotional distance or numbness. This usually happens during moments of crisis or loss, such as finding her father’s body, and may indicate that her emotions during such times are too overwhelming to process or explain. For example, she mentions “weeping women” but not whether or not she herself sheds any tears. The battle with the Aleuts marks a turning point in the novel because it shatters the villagers’ peaceful lives and eventually causes them to leave the island. Without her beloved father, Karana must learn to fend for herself.

“So hard did the women work that we really fared better than before when the hunting was done by the men. Life in the village should have been peaceful, but it was not. The men said that the women had taken the tasks that rightfully were theirs and now that they had become hunters the men looked down upon them.”

The Ghalas-at women’s hunting develops the theme of The Struggle for Survival and Self-Determination because they are simply doing what is necessary for the villagers to survive after the battle of Coral Cove (in which Captain Orlov and the Aleut hunters killed most of the Ghalas-at men). The women’s success shows that they are usually barred from certain tasks due to tradition, not a lack of ability. The alteration to the villagers’ traditional division of labor was sanctioned by the new chief, and it helps Karana see that women can survive and even thrive in ways that people previously believed were beyond them. After the new chief rescinds the women’s permission to hunt, this lesson stays with Karana and lays the foundation for her later success in fending for herself. This quote also foreshadows Karana setting aside some of her culture’s traditions and gender norms, such as the law that forbids women from making weapons, in order to survive.

“The ship began to circle the kelp bed and I thought surely that it was going to return to the shore. I held my breath, waiting. Then slowly its direction changed. It pointed toward the east. At that moment I walked across the deck and, though many hands tried to hold me back, flung myself into the sea.”

The moment Karana leaps into the sea marks another escalation of the novel’s suspense and is a key development for the theme of The Struggle for Survival and Self-Determination. By choosing to join Ramo on the island, Karana chooses to face unknown hardships without the aid of her village. Karana describes this daring, dangerous deed in a remarkably measured way. This tone suggests that there is no alternative course of action in her mind; the ever-responsible sister cannot imagine leaving Ramo behind on his own. Karana’s love for her brother drives her decision to jump overboard, in defiance of the chief and the other villagers trying to restrain her.

“I had not gone far along the trail before I began to wonder if I should not let him go to the cliff by himself. There was no way of telling when the ship would come back for us. Until it did, we were alone upon the island. Ramo therefore would have to become a man sooner than if we were not alone, since I would need his help in many ways.”

After Ramo wanders off at night, Karana makes the fateful decision not to follow him. Her reasoning is rooted in her people’s gender norms. The other villagers are gone, but the lessons they instilled in Karana maintain a powerful hold over her. As a result, Karana thinks six-year-old Ramo needs to mature quickly and “become a man” so he can help her. In a cruel twist of irony, Ramo will never grow up at all; wild dogs kill him before Karana can find him. Thus, she is left alone on the island and is the one who must mature in order to survive. Karana gradually overcomes the belief that she needs a man’s aid in order to survive, and learns to fend for herself in the years after her brother’s death.

“In the middle of the circle was Ramo. He was lying on his back, and had a deep wound in his throat. He lay very still. When I picked him up I knew that he was dead. There were other wounds on his body from the teeth of the wild dogs. He had been dead a long time and from his footsteps on the earth I could see that he had never reached the cliff.”

As with the description of Chief Chowig’s corpse, the narration does not delineate Karana’s emotions when she finds Ramo’s body. The detailed descriptions read more like a detective examining a crime scene rather than a child discovering her slain sibling. This emotional detachment may indicate a grief too strong to put into words and leaves O’Dell’s readers to infer Karana’s thoughts and feelings for themselves.

“All night I sat there with the body of my brother and did not sleep. I vowed that someday I would go back and kill the wild dogs in the cave. I would kill all of them. I thought of how I would do it, but mostly I thought of Ramo, my brother.”

O’Dell’s use of first-person narration creates a curious contrast as Karana sits beside her brother’s body. The reader watches the story unfold through her eyes but is not privy to all of her thoughts and emotions. For example, she spends most of the night thinking about her brother, but the reader is not privy to these thoughts. Ramo’s death and Karana’s vow to avenge him develop the theme of The Struggle for Survival and Self-Determination. She must endure the hardships of grief and loneliness after losing her brother, and the wild dogs become a major opponent in her battle to survive alone on the island.

“Fog crept in and out of the empty huts. It made shapes as it drifted and they reminded me of all the people who were dead and those who were gone. The noise of the surf seemed to be their voices speaking. I sat for a long time, seeing these shapes and hearing the voices, until the sun came out and the fog vanished. Then I made a fire against the wall of the house. When it was burned to the earth I started a fire in another house. Thus, one by one, I destroyed them all so that there were only ashes left to mark the village of Ghalas-at.”

After Ramo’s death, grief and isolation threaten to rob Karana of her will to live. The young girl already lost many people who were important to her, including both of her parents, and no other human remains alive on the island to help her bear these losses. She begins “hearing the voices” of the dead in the fog that envelops the abandoned village. The fact that Karana spends “a long time” listening to these voices shows that she is tempted to remain with the hallucinations of her loved ones rather than face the reality of her new, solitary life. However, the light of the sun helps her find the strength to move on from the past. Symbolically, Karana burns not only the village’s huts but also her old way of life. By building a new camp away from the ashes of the abandoned village, Karana demonstrates her need for change and determination to survive.

“As I lay there I wondered what would happen to me if I went against the law of our tribe which forbade the making of weapons by women—if I did not think of it at all and made those things which I must have to protect myself. Would the four winds blow in from the four directions of the world and smother me as I made the weapons? Or would the earth tremble, as many said, and bury me beneath its falling rocks? Or, as others said, would the sea rise over the island in a terrible flood? Would the weapons break in my hands at the moment when my life was in danger, which is what my father had said?”

In order to protect herself from the wild dogs, Karana must go against her people’s traditions and defy the teachings of her father, whom she greatly admires. This reinforces the connection between survival and self-determination in the novel. Karana must seize the power to decide her own fate instead of letting others define her. By crafting spears, bows, and arrows, Karana proves to herself that she is capable of far more than her people led her to believe. This self-knowledge empowers her to survive years of hardship and solitude on the island.

“More than anything, it was the blue dolphins that took me back home.”

After a leak in her canoe forces Karana to abandon her attempt to join her people in the east, dolphins lead her home. This connects to the theme of Learning from Nature because the animals teach Karana hope. Dolphins signify good luck to her people and seeing them gives her the strength to overcome her weariness and keep paddling back to the island. The dolphins’ role as guides is particularly fitting because Karana’s island home is named after them.

“Everything that I saw—the otter playing in the kelp, the rings of foam around the rocks that guarded the harbor, the gulls flying, the tides moving past the sandspit—filled me with happiness. I was surprised that I felt this way, for it was only a short time ago that I had stood on this same rock and felt that I could not bear to live here another day. I looked out at the blue water stretching away and all the fear I had felt during the time of the voyage came back to me. On the morning I first sighted the island and it had seemed like a great fish sunning itself, I thought that someday I would make the canoe over and go out once more to look for the country that lay beyond the ocean. Now I knew that I would never go again. The Island of the Blue Dolphins was my home; I had no other.”

Karana tried to leave the island because she fell into a long period of despair and “could not bear to live [there] another day.” However, after her return, she realizes that the Island of the Blue Dolphins is still her home despite all of its hardships. Seeing the otters and birds reawakens her love for this home, and she regains a sense of peace. The animals’ role in rekindling Karana’s happiness connects to the theme of Learning from Nature.

“While I stood there behind the rock, not knowing what to do, again aware of my father’s warning that a bow in the hands of a woman would always break in a time of danger, the animal began to move toward the shore. [....] I let the arrow go and it went straight. At the last instant he changed direction and, though the bow did not break, the arrow passed harmlessly to one side.”

Karana’s foiled attempt to kill a sea elephant shows that her people’s beliefs about women’s capabilities still influence her, even though she has survived alone on the island for years by this point. Chief Chowig’s belief that women should not craft weapons or hunt prove particularly difficult to shake. As the village’s chief and Karana’s father, he was the most important male authority figure in her life. Karana strives to overcome these limitations by refusing to abandon her plan to make a spear from a sea elephant tusk.

“All this I did, thinking of the days I had been sick and without water. It was hard work, much of it a man’s work, but not until I was finished did I go back to the place where the sea elephants lived.”

Karana advances the theme of The Struggle for Survival and Self-Determination by converting the cave where she hid from the wild dogs into an emergency shelter. She had to crawl to the spot with a wounded leg, and remembering her weakness and vulnerability makes her determined to leave the cave stronger. The experience of completing “man’s work” increases her self-efficacy. As a result, she feels ready to “go back to the place where the sea elephants lived,” a place where she previously experienced both failure and physical injury. Karana wants to make a spear from a sea elephant’s tusk to face the wild dogs; after taking on the hard work of converting the cave, she feels prepared to weather these dangers.

“Why I did not send the arrow I cannot say. I stood on the rock with the bow pulled back and my hand would not let it go. The big dog lay there and did not move and this may be the reason.”

Karana spares the wild dogs’ leader even though she has plotted her vengeance against him and the pack for years. She is not fully aware of the factors behind her choice, loneliness being one of them. However, she knows her wounded enemy is no longer a threat. This merciful choice shows that, despite the pain and loss Karana has experienced, she remains kind and nurturing at her core.

“On the fourth day when I came back from the rocks early he was not there at the fence waiting. A strange feeling came over me. Always before when I returned, I had hoped that he would be gone. But now as I crawled under the fence I did not feel the same.”

Karana’s realization that she wants the wild dog to stay with her is a key moment for the novel’s theme of Building Trust and Friendship. The “strange feeling” that comes over Karana stems from her need for companionship. Her relief at seeing the pack’s former leader transforms him from an enemy to an ally. She names him Rontu later that night, and his friendship becomes a great comfort to her.

“Together we would walk along the cliff looking at the sea, and though the white men’s ship did not return that spring, it was a happy time. The air smelled of flowers and birds sang everywhere.”

Karana’s springtime strolls with Rontu develop the themes of Learning from Nature and Building Trust and Friendship. Her hopes no longer depend on the promise of rescue, represented by “the white men’s ship.” Instead, she finds joy in her new life and the companionship of nature.

“My spear stood beside the mouth of the cave within easy reach. The girl was not more than ten paces from me and with one movement I could have picked up the spear and thrown it. Why I did not throw the spear, I do not know, for she was one of the Aleuts who had killed my people on the beach of Coral Cove.”

The scene in which Karana spares Tutok’s life presents several parallels to Chapter 15, in which she spares the wounded Rontu. Karana is uncertain of her own reasons for showing mercy in both cases. Although she is unaware of it at the time, her loneliness and desire for friendship play a key role in these decisions. She initially sees both Rontu and Tutok as enemies and blames them for the deaths of her loved ones. Karana did not see the wild dogs kill her brother, so she does not know for certain that Rontu is the one who killed him; however, she holds him responsible because he is the pack’s leader. Similarly, she holds all Aleuts responsible for the deaths of her father and the other men of Ghalas-at. She has no evidence that Tutok participated in the battle, but views her as “one of the Aleuts who had killed my people on the beach of Coral Cove.” However, in time, Karana learns to trust Tutok, and the latter becomes one of her most cherished friends, like Rontu.

“‘Karana,’ I said, pointing to myself. She repeated the word, but she did not understand what it meant. ‘Won-a-pa-lei,’ she said, frowning. I shook my head. Pointing again to myself, I said, ‘Karana.’ Her black eyes opened wide. Slowly she began to smile.”

Karana develops the theme of Building Trust and Friendship by telling Tutok her secret name. At first, Karana told the Aleut girl to call her Won-a-pa-lei, but the two girls grow close and she reintroduces herself as Karana in anticipation of Tutok’s departure. Sharing her secret name is a significant display of trust because Karana’s father died at Aleut hunters’ hands after sharing his secret name with Captain Orlov and his men. In the end, Karana learns to extend trust, turning former enemies into trusted friends.

“Below me, Rontu was running along the cliff, barking at the screaming gulls. Pelicans were chattering as they fished the blue water. Far off I could hear the bellow of a sea elephant. But suddenly, as I thought of Tutok, the island seemed very quiet.”

O’Dell’s use of auditory imagery and understated language allows readers to infer Karana’s emotions after her friend sails away. Tutok offered Karana her sole experience of human companionship in years. Compared to her friend’s laughter and conversation, the “barking,” “screaming,” “chattering,” and bellowing of animals seem “very quiet.” Before Tutok’s arrival, Karana felt content among her animal friends. The Aleut girl’s introduction complicates the themes of nature and friendship by framing animal companionship as an insufficient substitute for human connection. In the end, befriending and saying goodbye to Tutok strongly influence Karana’s decision to leave the island.

“Ulape would have laughed at me, and others would have laughed, too—my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, but in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the others had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do not talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”

Karana’s decision to stop hunting and killing animals represents the culmination of the theme of Learning from Nature. Her friendship with Won-a-nee and the otter pups is the final catalyst, but this shift in her philosophy is years in the making. Karana felt a closeness to otters and condemned the Aleuts for hunting them back in Chapter 3. The other animals that Karana meets along the way, such as Rontu, also help change her mindset. Rontu starts out as an enemy but later becomes one of her dearest companions. Because of him, Karana believes that animals who are not her friends “in time could be.” In addition, defying her people’s beliefs about women helps her find confidence in herself and her convictions. Even though the other villagers, her sister, and especially her father would laugh at her, Karana holds onto her profound respect for all life.

“I came to the mound where my ancestors had sometimes camped in the summer. I thought of them and of the happy times spent in my house on the headland, of my canoe lying unfinished beside the trail. I thought of many things, but stronger was the wish to be where people lived, to hear their voices and their laughter.”

Although Karana does not succeed in boarding the ship in Chapter 28, this quote clarifies her thoughts and emotions and helps the reader understand why she eventually leaves the island. She recalls her people’s history and the “happy times spent in [her] house,” but these memories pale in comparison to her desire for human companionship. Again, O’Dell uses sounds to show Karana’s feelings: Her longing to hear people’s “voices and their laughter” emphasizes her quiet isolation.