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 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
As the chapter opens, Susila remembers her husband Dugald, who has recently died. Susila makes her way to her father-in-law Dr. Robert’s home and meets Will for the first time. Dr. Robert and Susila discuss Will’s condition. Dr. Robert says that earlier that day he visited with his ailing wife, Lakshmi. She is terminally ill, but he says that her condition does not seem as bad as it had been. Susila makes her way into Will’s room and introduces herself. They have a lengthy conversation, and Susila hypnotizes Will. Hypnosis is a form of therapy in Pala, as it turns the patient’s focus away from their immediate physical pain.
Chapter 5 Summary
Dr. Robert and his ill wife Lakshmi have a discussion. Dr. Robert mentions how lucky he is to have had Lakshmi in his life, for the way she taught him to live in the present moment and the real world. As an educated man, Dr. Robert was always studying and learning; he credits Lakshmi with bringing him out of his studies when necessary. For her part, Lakshmi is a free-spirit—she likens herself to a flea hopping from one place to the next.
Dr. Robert leaves his wife, checks on Will, and gives him a book called, Notes on What’s What, and on What It Might be Reasonable to Do about What’s What, written by the Old Raja. Murugan visits Will. He reveals that he is the Rani’s son and will soon be the new Raja. Will’s impression that Murugan is gay is reinforced by how Murugan reacts to the mention of Colonel Dipa. Murugan makes it clear that he does not see the Palanese government positively. He tells Will that once he is Raja, there will be many drastic changes. Will asks if these changes include selling Pala’s oil, and Murugan says they do. Eventually, the Rani and the ambassador Bahu from Rendang-Lobo visit Will and Murugan. Will once again broaches the topic of Pala’s oil. He, Bahu, and the Rani reach a deal in principle. Nurse Radha arrives to give Will medicine. The Rani and Murugan depart.
Chapter 6 Summary
Nurse Radha and Bahu stay behind in Will’s room. Radha gives Will an herbal medicine and leaves. Bahu negotiates the oil deal more with Will. He tells Will to write a letter to Joe Aldehyde stipulating the terms. When Bahu leaves, Radha suggests that she does not like Bahu because he offered her money for sex; she sees this as hypocritical considering his religious worldview. Will asks Radha about her experiences with outsiders, and she mentions how American doctors recently visited Pala. She discusses how mental health is treated on the island compared to how it is treated in the West. Will asks Radha about Murugan. The Rani had mentioned that a girl—whom she didn’t name—had tried to convince Murugan to have sex when they were around 15, a few years ago. Murugan resisted. Radha felt remorse about her behavior.
Radha and Will are joined by Radha’s current boyfriend, Ranga. Their conversation turns toward sex. Will learns of the island’s preferred means of birth control, a technique called Maithuna, or denial of orgasm. Will asks how the Palanese regard gay individuals and learns that they are very accepting. The three examine how the Palanese have been able to remain free from outside influences for so long, while Rendang-Lobo was colonized. Ranga attributes Pala’s stable population rate to Buddhist values.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Like Will, Susila and Dr. Robert have experienced a loved one’s death. However, they interpret it extremely differently. Susila recognizes that there is a piece of her missing, that her husband Dugald, who was killed in a rock-climbing accident, is gone for good. She sees it as an “amputation.” Like Will, her thoughts wander to the past; as she begins to cry, she catches herself and realizes that “amputation was no excuse for self-pity, for all that Dugald was dead, the birds were as beautiful as ever and her children, all the other children, had as much need to be loved and helped and taught” (28). She does not wallow in her pain, nor does she bury and hide from it, as Will has. Instead, she accepts it, intentionally shifting her thoughts back to the present.
The novel’s sinister elements come into clearer focus in these chapters. Murugan and his mother, the Rani, emerge as the novel’s antagonists, or the characters that will propel Will, the protagonist, toward transformation. They have been deeply influenced by the West and look at Palanese culture contemptuously. The Rani sees some of the sexual rituals of Pala, such as adolescent initiation into the yoga of sex, as morally deplorable. She has shielded and smothered her son, Murugan, so that he is not his own person.
Murugan, who is soon to become the Raja, also speaks derisively of Palanese culture and of the island’s leaders. He says: “These old idiots here only want to industrialize in spots and leave all the rest as it was a thousand years ago” (50). Murugan is only able to see prosperity in economic terms; the Palanese model, which values individual self-actualization, is lost on him. The materialistic drive to modernize is a Western model. All Murugan can see is what Pala is missing, not what merits it has. The novel is setting up a critique of Western thought and the theme of Greed and the End of Utopia.
Will is still at the beginning of his character arc. In these chapters he is exposed to influences that will propel him toward change. Will is learning that Pala does not believe that humans are filled with wrongdoing. In his view, humans are sinners; the ugly part of humanity typically triumphs over the more compassionate and generous. Will says: “We’re all demented sinners in the same cosmic boat—and the boat is perpetually sinking” (76). At this point, Will thinks that Palanese individuals are naive, or that they are purposely avoiding what he sees as human truth.
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By Aldous Huxley
