33 pages • 1 hour read
Aldous HuxleyIsland
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1962A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel begins with a disoriented and injured Will Farnaby hearing a mynah bird speaking the word, “attention.” Presumably, Will is in and out of consciousness due to his injury. Images of his wife Molly’s death flicker in and out of his thoughts. He recalls the moments that led up to her death. He had told Molly that their marriage was over; subsequently, she left in a haste, and was killed while driving in a rainstorm.
Will slowly starts to come around. We learn that he was injured while trying to climb a cliff at the edge of a beach. He has been shipwrecked here, at the island of Pala.
Chapter 2 Summary
Will is spotted by two children, who we later learn are Mary Sarojini and Tom Krishna, grandchildren of the island’s preeminent doctor and intellectual, Dr. Robert MacPhail. Mary asks Will if he is hungry. The fact that the children speak English gives him pause. Mary tells Will about the Mynah birds that chant “attention.” She asks how he was injured, and Will says that he fell from the cliff when he saw a snake. Meanwhile, Tom has gone off in search of help.
Chapter 3 Summary
Dr. Robert arrives to help Will. Through their chat, we learn that Will is a journalist and hates his long-deceased father. We also learn that Dr. Robert was born on Pala. A man named Vijaya Bhattacharya arrives with a bamboo stretcher. Once Will is loaded onto it, they transport him to hospital.
Curious onlookers watch. Will recognizes Murugan, a 17-year-old boy. He had been seen previously driving Colonel Dipa’s car around Rendnag-Lobo, another island in the archipelago. We will soon learn that Pala and Rendang-Loo order their societies much differently. Will tells Dr. Robert that he had been in Rendang-Lobo to observe the inhabitants and write a story on them. However, he has an ulterior motive: to negotiate, on behalf of his employer Joe Aldehyde, a deal for the rights to the island’s oil reserves.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The beginning of the novel introduces a core theme, Transcendence and Being Present. Will is having a flashback to his wife’s death. In calling her name, he feels remorse and guilt—though we do not yet know why. Will associates her name not just with her death, but with shame at his own behavior, a shame he carries with him. Unlike Westerners, the Pala do not experience the same degree of negative emotions.
In Pala, awareness of the present is an important cultural value. The mynah birds act as messengers, their voices near constant reminders that people should pay attention to the present moment. As the young girl Mary tells Will, the birds say “attention” to keep us anchored: “That’s what you always forget, isn’t it? I mean you forget to pay attention to what’s happening. And that’s not the same as being here and now” (12).
Huxley juxtaposes Will’s memories with the birds imploring him to pay attention. This foreshadows how the novel will explore the role of guilt and shame, and how the people of Pala navigate shame differently than Westerners. Will is not focused on the present, even when he is injured; he spends much of the novel reflecting on his past, which is mainly negative, or speculating on the future, particularly as his motivations for being in the region become clear. He is often scheming and anticipating the deal he came to Pala to negotiate, meaning he is not present.
His transformation depends on his growing ability to stay grounded in the present. By the end of the novel, he will learn to transcend the past and abstract emotions, like shame, and to stay anchored to sensory experiences.
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By Aldous Huxley
