Resilience ------------- zilu

This chapter also shows that tribal traditions strongly govern the lives of the characters. Kimki's decision to renounce the division of labor in the people of Ghalas-at was made out of necessity, and allowing women to do the work once given only to men prove quite useful and effective. However, this change makes the men of the village angry, and eventually Kimki restores the old order. The women are, in reality, as good as or better than the men at the men's jobs (as Karana explains in chapter five), and thus the division of labor is revealed as arbitrary. Even so, the men consider tasks such as hunting to be rightfully theirs, and the strength of such tradition is enough to bring things back to the way they were .

though her efforts to establish a comfortable life on the island are repeatedly thwarted, she never shows signs of despair. Karana is often sad, as when her brother was killed, or frightened, as when she was injured by the sea elephant and stalked by wild dogs, but she never gives up. She is always looking ahead to her next task on the island.

We know that Karana cares deeply for others even at the very beginning of the novel, as is demonstrated when she plunges into the sea to go back to the island for her brother. Later, she is faced with different types of decisions. Faced with the necessity of hunting and defending herself from the wild dogs, Karana need to make weapons, something that the laws of her tribe forbid women to do. The stories say that weapons made by women will break just when one needs them most. After long deliberation, however, Karana decides to make a set of weapons for herself, and soon realizes that the old tales were false.

This girl loses her entire family, including the little brother she stayed to save, and then spends most of the rest of her life alone on an island. The very matter-of-factness of the narrative bothered me. It was one thing to voluntarily spend a year away from your family, like Sam Gribley in My Side of the Mountain (a childhood favorite of mine which I did re-read several times), but to lose everyone? With no idea what happened to them, or if anyone would ever come back for you? I didn't like that at all.


References:
1. http://www.sanedraw.com/NOTEBOOK/ISLANDBD.HTM

2. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dolphins/canalysis.html

3. http://newberryproject.blogspot.com/2007/05/island-of-blue-dolphins.html

4. http://www.buildingrainbows.com/review.php/reviewid/7523

5. http://www.millbury.k12.ma.us/shaw/karanaessay.html

6. http://www.lsu.edu/faculty/jpullia/3223historical2.htm

7. http://www.amazon.de/Island-Dolphins-Illustrated-American-Classics/dp/0395536804

8. http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4076/booksnewkids.html

9.http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dolphins/section3.rhtml