Friendship Theme Analysis

When 12-year-old Karana finds herself stranded with her brother on the Island of the Blue Dolphins, she figures she and six-year-old Ramo will be able to survive until the ship that took the rest of their tribe away returns. But when wild dogs kill Ramo a day later, Karana finds herself totally alone—and vows to take revenge by killing all the wild dogs on the island. Ultimately, though, Karana’s desire to live by herself wanes, and over the course of the 18 years she spends on the island, she makes friends with two wild dogs, birds, otters, and a fox—in addition to Tutok, a visiting Aleut girl. Through Karana’s unlikely friendships with these creatures and people, the novel suggests that, if a person is willing to look, there are friends waiting to be made everywhere. All alone on the island and in desperate need of companionship, Karana realizes that companionship is necessary for her happiness. She also discovers that it’s possible to make friends with nearly anyone, if she’s willing to put aside her preconceived notions about a person or animal, look for all the things they might have in common, and take the risk of becoming their friend.

At first, Karana and her tribe have very distinct ideas about who and what beings are friendship material. When the Aleuts and Captain Orlov arrive to hunt otter around the Island of the Blue Dolphins, Karana’s father, Chief Chowig, instructs the tribe to steer clear of the Aleuts. He insists that the tribe can profit by allowing the Aleuts to hunt—but he says forcefully that “we shall not profit if we try to befriend them. They are people who do not understand friendship.” His reasoning is that the Aleuts speak a different language and are, in so many ways, too different from the Nicoleños to befriend. This sets up the idea that Karana’s tribe is somewhat prejudiced against outsiders—though in the case of the Aleuts, who ultimately murder many of the tribe’s men, Karana decides the tribe was right to proceed with caution and suspicion. Once she’s stranded on the island by herself, Karana also makes judgments about animals on the island. When the wild dogs kill Ramo less than a day after they’re stranded, Karana vows to kill them—especially the dogs’ leader, whom she believes came to the island with the Aleuts. As with the Aleuts themselves, Karana has every reason to hate the dogs, fear them, and want nothing to do with them—but ultimately, she finds her lonely situation unsustainable.

The novel suggests that when a person is extremely lonely, people and animals who once seemed too different to befriend can start to look like potential friends. Though Karana follows through with shooting the wild dogs’ leader, when she discovers two days later that he isn’t dead yet—and when he doesn’t fight back—she brings him home with her, against her better judgment. And over the next few days, as she nurses the dog back to health, Karana discovers that the dog—whom she names Rontu—has become a friend. They spend the next several years nearly inseparable, hunting together, journeying together in Karana’s canoe, and walking along the cliffs to admire the sunset. And while Karana is unwilling to voice outright why she ultimately decides to keep Rontu rather than kill him, she suggests that she was too lonely without another creature to keep her company. Karana goes through much the same transformation when she befriends an Aleut girl named Tutok. Tutok accompanies the Aleut hunters when they come to the island to hunt otter, and one day, she stumbles upon Karana outside Karana’s cave. At first, Karana is frightened by Tutok and so is cold and rude to her—Tutok is an Aleut, after all, and Karana still fears and blames the Aleuts for killing her friends and neighbors. But over the next few days, as the girls exchange gifts and words in each other’s languages, Karana starts to consider Tutok a friend. And when Tutok ultimately leaves the island, Karana continues to think of her often and craves the company of another person like Tutok. Karana’s loneliness makes her desire for friendship even more pronounced.

Though Karana’s loneliness isn’t remedied by the end of the novel (even though she ultimately leaves with Catholic missionaries, it’s unclear if Karana ever finds her tribe again), she discovers that she can counteract her loneliness to some degree by treating animals as either friends or potential friends. Over the 18 years that Karana spends on the island, she befriends not just Rontu, but Rontu’s son, Rontu-Aru, in addition to various birds, foxes, and otter. Eventually, Karana decides to never kill another animal on the island (save for fish and shellfish). She states that “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.” In addition, she justifies her choice by saying that the other animals on the island could, in time, become her friends and are more than just a source of food, sinew, or weaponry. Karana’s new beliefs about befriending animals suggest that in dire circumstances like hers, a person’s need for companionship can force them to look outside where they’d normally look for friends and befriend beings they never would’ve thought to befriend in other circumstances. Though Karana hints that there’s no real substitute for human companionship (she longs for human friends and to hear other human voices until she finally leaves the island), her animal friends provide necessary, welcome proof that Karana isn’t alone in the world.