The Stranger in the Lifeboat

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapter 11-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Justice Among Different Classes and Social Groups

When the novel opens the reader is unaware of the various backgrounds of the characters; all that is revealed at first are the names of the survivors, and a few small details about a few of them (like which have children, for instance). Rather quickly, however, the interactions between figures reveals the disparate backgrounds of each. Some are present on the boat because they are famous, some because they are extremely wealthy and influential, others in the lifeboat however, served as deckhands and part of the crew.

Part of the drama and tension of the narrative is how this disparate group of men and women from different—even competing—social and economic classes are now constrained by equitable circumstances. In the middle of the ocean, with only a thin layer of rubber between them and certain death, everyone is equal. While most seem not to take note of this fact, it does cause some explicit tension and even violence.

During a conversation where the group is sharing who they are and how they got on the lifeboat, Jason Lambert bursts out in frustration at the seeming helplessness of the situation:

‘And you, scribble boy. Benji. How come I don’t know what I pay you to do?’ I felt his eyes on me. My body roiled inside. I’d worked on the Galaxy for five months. He still had no clue who I was. But I knew him. ‘Deckhand,’ I said. Lambert grunted. ‘A deckhand, a haircutter, and a cook. Really useful out here’ (75).

While many of the castaways prove to be kind, at the very least, Lambert (the owner of the yacht) proves himself to be as arrogant as possible, still unable to truly see other people as possessed of dignity if they’re not materially or financially useful to him.

This serves as an illustration of the larger issue of Lambert’s personality and the presumed grievance that Benji holds against Lambert in the first place (though unbeknownst to any but Benji and the reader). The disdain that Benji believes Lambert demonstrated toward him and his mother—believing Lambert to be the absent father who abandoned them—is the cause of Benji’s desire to blow up the boat. While still under the illusion that he has helped blow up the yacht, Benji realizes that his hatred of Lambert is analogous to Lambert’s hatred of those lesser than himself; in that moment, Benji realizes that he has created a wall of anger that only dissipates in his final days on the boat.

Confronting the Reality of Death and the Grieving Process

The novel deals explicitly with the tension and drama that comes with being stuck in the middle of the ocean with someone who claims to be God himself. The underlying drama, however, that is arguably the more compelling and intended theme of the book, is the question concerning how precisely one is to deal with the death of a loved one. In both timelines the principal character is mourning the death of someone they had loved dearly: Benji is dealing with the loss of his wife Annabelle, and LeFleur with the loss of his daughter Lilly.

In modern life the reality of death is often cordoned off into its own sphere; the existence of nursing homes and hospice centers and funeral parlors all serve to make death as simple, clean, and nonintrusive as possible. Death is not something a person typically wants to think about, and so Benji discovers this truth about his own relationship to death while facing his own. Surviving the shipwreck and then the harrowing days that would follow, Benji sees death up close and personal. He watches Bernadette and Nevin die from their injuries; he watches Lambert drown; he watches Mrs. Laghari and Geri get ripped apart by sharks. He comes within a hair’s breadth of his own death as well, and yet lives to tell the tale.

For most of the novel, it is unclear what exactly the nature of Annabelle’s departure from Benji’s life truly is—death, divorce, or abandonment. When LeFleur meets Dobby, who tells him that Annabelle died, the nature of Benji’s sorrow and his intentions with the diary become clear. Writing the diary was his way of confronting his own grief, attempting to generate his own healing process by speaking to the dead and saying what he feels he never got the chance to say. The novel also affirms the reality that coming to understand and participate in the grieving process of another can even be healing for the self; by reading Benji’s diary, LeFleur is able to come to terms with his own sorrow and grief, ending the mourning period by reconciling with his wife and having another child.

The Power of Faith and Hope

The primary drama of the castaways’ tension with the stranger they pull from the sea concerns who they variously believe he really is. Claiming to be “the Lord,” the stranger is curiously quiet and inactive during their voyage drifting through the sea. Naturally some of the group ask whether he is there to save them, but the stranger’s response is deflective, telling the group that he can only save them “when everyone here believes I am who I say I am” (11). In saying this, the stranger sets everyone in relation to him immediately, as their salvation may ultimately come down to who they believe him to be.

Over the course of the group’s time in the lifeboat, many question the stranger and ask him to perform miracles or healings. In the end, only a small minority seem to end up at a decision in favor of the stranger’s bold claim. Jean Philippe, in the wake of his wife’s death, leaves Benji a note about how he desires nothing else in the world, and that he knows his wife is in a better place and desires his presence with her. In the end, his note gives a blessing to Benji, asking for the Lord to protect him. Benji too, in the very end with Alice, also seems to be assured of the reality of a divine presence in the boat with him.

All alone, having watched everyone else die or be killed, Benji begins to admit things he had been lying about even to himself. In the presence of Alice, Benji discovers faith and hope in a way that he had never considered truly possible. The faith he has in the reality of the Lord’s presence in the stranger and in Alice is confirmed in an analogous way as it had been for Jean Philippe; being able to face death peacefully and with conviction is the result of having faith. Hope too allows Jean Philippe to believe in something beyond the here and now that he can physically sense, and hope allows Benji to hold onto life just long enough to enjoy more favorable circumstances that allow him ultimately to survive.