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Chapter 25
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Island of the Blue Dolphins, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Natural World
Solitude
Friendship
Gender Roles and Survival
Colonialism, Violence, and Indigenous Culture
Summary
Analysis
Over the winter, Karana only leaves her house to get water. The weather is terrible, so even if Rontu had been around, Karana wouldn’t go out much. She makes four snares, which she intends to use to catch a young dog who looks like Rontu. Karana believes he’s Rontu’s son, as he’s big and has Rontu’s heavy fur and yellow eyes. Late in the winter Karana sets the snares outside her fence. She catches several dogs, but not the one she wants. When she tries again, the dogs refuse to get close to the snares. Karana does catch a red fox, which she keeps for a while. But the fox is crafty and keeps getting into the food, so Karana lets her go.
Having befriended a wild dog once before, Karana doesn’t think twice about catching and taming one again. She now recognizes how important it is to have a companion with her at all times, and that need for companionship outweighs any residual fear of the wild dogs. Karana’s unsuccessful experiment with keeping the red fox shows her that not all animals make such great companions.
Themes
Karana is ready to give up on catching the dog when she remembers how her tribe used to use toluache weed to catch fish. It’s not exactly a poison, but it makes fish flip over and float. Karana digs some up and puts it in the wild dogs’ water. Then, she watches the pack drink. The toluache doesn’t seem to affect them, so Karana decides to try xuchal, a mixture of wild tobacco and ground seashells. When the dogs encounter it in their water, they act suspicious. But eventually, they all drink, and a bit later, they lie down and sleep.
As Karana experiments with the toluache and xuchal, she shows how connected she still is to her tribe. She still remembers this cultural knowledge, and she can still put it to use as she makes her way alone on the island. It seems like this is something that takes her a bit to recall, though, highlighting how long she’s been alone on the island and how removed she is from memories like this.
Themes
Karana finds the dog she wants, picks him up, and quickly carries him home. She ties him to the fence and leaves him food and water. He quickly chews through the tie and spends the whole night howling. In the morning, Karana tries to come up with a name for him. Because he looks so much like Rontu, Karana decides to call him Rontu-Aru, or son of Rontu. He becomes Karana’s friend quickly. Though he’s not as big as his father, he chases the gulls and barks at otter just like Rontu did. At these times, Karana forgets he isn’t Rontu. Though they have a lot of fun that summer, Karana finds herself thinking more and more of Tutok and Ulape. Sometimes, she hears their voices in the wind or the waves.
Things get easier in some ways now that Karana has another dog to keep her company. At the very least, her loneliness isn’t so pronounced now that she has a dog’s antics to laugh at. But still, Karana has been separated from other people for years at this point, so it’s perhaps not surprising that she thinks more often of her old friend and her sister. The note that she hears their voices around the island speaks to just how lonely Karana really is, as it seems like her mind is trying to make up companions where there are none.
Themes
