Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley (19 page)

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Authors: Kenneth Roberts,Jack Bales,Richard Warner

Tags: #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc., #Nottingham (Galley) - Fiction, #Transportation, #Historical, #Boon Island (Me.) - Fiction, #Boon Island, #18th Century, #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc - Fiction, #Survival After Airplane Accidents; Shipwrecks; Etc, #Shipwrecks, #Fiction, #Literary, #Sea Stories, #Historical Fiction, #Shipwrecks - Maine - Boon Island - History - 18th Century - Fiction, #test, #Boon Island (Me.), #General, #Maine, #History

BOOK: Boon Island: including Contemporary Accounts of the Wreck of the Nottingham Galley
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Page 99
reasoning hoggishness on Langman's part, and there was hot resentment against Langman, and an irritation against everything. (25556)
Another example of Roberts's incorporation of history into literature, surrounded by his black and white paradigms of moral virtues and vices, is the men's decision to eat the body of Chips Bullock, the carpenter. Although most of the men favor the idea, Langman and his friends refuse, (1) simply because the Captain approves the plan, and (2) so they could laterif they were rescuedtestify that eating him was the Captain's suggestion. Dean writes in his revised account: "The Mate, and the two other Opposers, refus'd to partake of the Flesh that Night, but were the first next Morning to beg an equal Share in the common Allowance. The Master, to prevent Dispute, distributed it by Lot, with the utmost Impartiality; and to take off any Aversion, enjoin'd them to call it Beef" (82). Langman merely notes that "the Mate, the Boatswain [Nicholas Mellen], and George White wou'd not touch any of it till next Day that they were forced to it by Extremity of Hunger"(54).
Roberts's dramatization of this decision is one of the most emotional and chilling sections in the bookand one Roberts fortunately does not overdo, for he intended the novel not to be a morality story of cannibalism but one of survival. Because Langman's account is signed by Mellen and Whitethe same two who refused to eat the meatRoberts of course portrays them as Langman's henchmen throughout the entire story:
When we returned exhausted and depressed to the tent to feed those comrades who had lain there, sunk in helplessness because of some frightened quirk of their disgusting brains, Langman, White and Mellen, as able-bodied as any of us, refused to eat.
"An insult," Langman mumbled, "to the spirit of a friend."
"Langman," Captain Dean said, "my duty by you is done. Eat or don't eat, as you please. But my duty to the rest of us is
not
done, and if I hear any more talk out of you about this meat being anybody's spirit, you'll rue the day!"
 
Page 100
"Are you threatening me?" Langman asked.
"Yes, I'm threatening you," Captain Dean said. "If you pour out your spleen on these others, I'll protect them by stopping your mouth. This meat I'm offering is nobody's spirit. It's beef. It was animated once by a soul and a spirit, but the soul and the spirit have gone from this island, leaving only beef behind." (29899)
As Langman explained in his account of the wreck of the
Nottingham Galley,
he, Mellen, and White ate their share of the dead man the next day. Roberts writes in
Boon Island
that Langman tells the captain that the three changed their minds because they realized "it's not a sin to eat beef. When we understood it was beef, we saw we'd made a mistake" (302).
While book reviewers were pleased to see a new Roberts novel in bookstores, many shared the opinion of one of the author's close friends, who regarded the story as "a failure if judged by the magnificent qualities of his earlier books."
12
As a reviewer for the
Chicago Tribune
elaborated: "This novel lacks the range of character, setting, action, and reflection of Roberts' previous books. Instead of that full fare it offers a somber study in merciless hunger and pitiless coldand in the greed and endurance, the treachery and loyalty that emerge in men under stress."
13
But
Boon Island
is more than just this "somber study." Because Roberts, throughout his career, was intent on producing works of fiction that were both historically accurate and readable, he seldom used symbolism or allegories. With
Boon Island,
however, his last novel, not only are his characters symbolic of good and evil but his geography is as well. When the men are finally rescued Roberts several times contrasts England with the United States, portraying America as the safe and secure haven where a man can achieve his potential through diligence and hard work, as opposed to a corrupt and amoral eighteenth-century Europe inhabited by scoundrels, thieves, and ne'er-do-wells. When Miles Whitworth tells one of their rescuers, Colonel William

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