52 pages • 1 hour read
Eva IbbotsonJourney to the River Sea
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Maia
Maia is the protagonist of the novel, and is the focal character of this bildungsroman that charts her development from a lone orphan to a bold and adventurous young woman with a chosen family. At her boarding school, Maia initially feels alone in the world. She has lost her parents in a train crash and spends her holidays alone at boarding school while the other girls go home to their families. She looks different than the other girls in her class, with darker hair and features; as the narrative states, “Her ears, laid bare by the heavy rope of black hair, gave her an unprotected look” (8). Her naivety, vulnerability and longing for a home drive her childish romanticized vision of familial bliss with the Carters, despite her friend Clovis’s warning that they are strangers to her. Her school friends are all frightened for her, and Maia is daunted by the unfamiliar landscape to which she is headed. Her initial Fear of the Unknown is conveyed through third-person commentary, for the narrative asserts, “Maia was a heroine, but not the kind that people envied; more the kind that got burnt at the stake” (11).
Maia’s transformation follows a hero’s journey common to many adventure stories, in which she is called to enter the unfamiliar environment of the Amazon, and must take risks and overcome obstacles, ultimately undergoing a profound transformation in the course of her experiences. Despite her lack of worldly knowledge, Maia is characterized as talented, brave, and likeable, and these traits help her to embrace her new surroundings and grow. Maia’s talent for music and singing and her mother’s musical influence support her creative connection with people and places. Maia’s willingness to learn of the songs of the servants who live behind the Carters helps her gain their favor and trust, and this connection allows her to make friends with the Brazilians: something that the Carters have failed to do. The local people’s trust in Maia is what brings her to Finn, as well as her mother’s favorite song “Blow the Wind Southerly,” which she hears him whistling; this gives her comfort and inspires her search for the mysterious whistler.
Maia’s bravery also leads her to Finn and her chosen family. They first meet when Maia boldly and foolishly decides to traverse solo through the jungle on a quest to see her friend Clovis in Manaus. When she sees Finn approach in his canoe, she chooses to trust him rather than fear him, chastising herself that fear is “thinking like the Carters” (53). Unlike the Carters, who avoid contact with the landscape and the people around them, Maia is curious, open-hearted, and delighted by the possibility of natural discovery; this inclusive attitude leads her to self-discovery through her interactions with the Amazon and its people.
Miss Minton
Miss Minton acts as Maia’s mentor on her journey, giving her knowledge, insight, and aid in her struggle with the Carters. She also abets the identity-swap caper with Clovis and Finn and advocates for Maia's future happiness to Mr. Murray by becoming her guardian. Initially, Miss Minton is portrayed as severe and physically intimidating. As the narrative states, “Her eyes, behind thick, dark-rimmed spectacles, were the color of mud, her mouth was narrow, her nose thin and sharp and her black felt hat was tethered to her sparse bun of hair with a fearsome hat pin in the shape of a Viking spear” (14). However, her relationship with Maia quickly develops to one of shared appreciation for Romantic Portrayals of Wilderness Exploration, which Miss Minton encourages through the tailored curriculum that she creates for Maia.
Miss Minton advocates and guides Maia, encouraging her love of exploration and her growth into young adulthood. Miss Minton is also proven to be shrewd and strategic; for example, she manipulates Mrs. Carter into allowing Maia’s separate curriculum, ensures that Maia is given dance and music lessons, and invents Maia’s fake “pulmonary spasms” to create a plausible reason for Maia to explore her surroundings and connect with Finn. She is also loyal to Maia, sacrificing her own chance at adventure to stay with her when Professor Glastonberry invites her to become a roving naturalist.
Miss Minton becomes a motherly presence to Maia, brushing her hair and insisting on dental hygiene even when Maia is living in the jungle. Her theory of child-rearing is revealed when she appeals to Mr. Murray for guardianship of Maia, saying, “I would let her […] have adventures. I would let her […] choose her path” (190). Miss Minton’s mentorship of Maia is also transformative for herself. Having lived a difficult life serving families and their children for many years, Miss Minton’s adventure with Maia to the Xanti tribe frees her from conforming to English society, and this transformation is represented by her decision to shed her corset and to return to the Amazon and a life of exploration.
Finn Taverner
Finn is portrayed as both a mentor to Maia and her reward for exhibiting bravery and heroism. His relationship with Maia offers them both a chance for healing from the grief of their parents’ deaths. Finn’s dual heritage as the son of a British aristocratic father and an Indigenous Xanti mother allows him to symbolically embody Maia’s two worlds (English society and the Amazon wilderness). When Finn sends Furo to invite Maia into the secret lagoon, she crosses the threshold from the Carters’ perspective of Human Greed and Exploitation into one of appreciation for and immersion in the natural world. This transition into a new and unfamiliar lifestyle is conveyed through Maia’s sighting of Finn and his animal companion as she arrives in the lagoon, thinking that “[h]e looked like no boy [she] had ever seen, standing so still, not waving or shouting instructions, just being there. And the dog who stood beside him was unlike other dogs also” (68).
Maia and Finn’s mutual love of nature links them to each other and transforms their individual grief into a healing connection. Maia shares her grief with Finn, confiding that she sees her dead parents in visions sometimes: a phenomenon that he shares. Their bond is ultimately lifesaving when Finn rescues Maia after the fire and treats her wounds. Finn’s resourcefulness and knowledge of the jungle allows them to survive alone together on their journey to the Xanti tribe. Ultimately, Finn finds a sense of home and belonging with Maia. When Clovis’s decision to remain as Westwood heir releases Finn from his duty and he decides to return to Maia, he feels transformed, as if he were “made of something quite different. Not muscle and bone—feathers and air…and lightness” (189).
Clovis King (Jimmy Bates)
Clovis’s arc in the novel is a rags-to-riches fairy-tale trope in which he renounces an impoverished and obscure existence and instead becomes an aristocratic heir to lands, titles, and a fortune. Like Maia, he is a Cinderella figure, orphaned and then abused by his adoptive family, the Goodleys, who “behaved as if no one existed in the world except themselves” (18). Clovis lives in insect-infested hotel rooms and is often cold and hungry. His suffering makes him more worldly than Maia, but also more fearful. He does not embrace the jungle life like Maia and Finn, but longs for the comfort of familiarity and ordinariness.
For Clovis, Maia and Miss Minton are a magical force, like fairy godmothers, who give him an opportunity to escape his misery by becoming someone else. He is ultimately rewarded for his talents, bravery, and loyalty. When he boldly steps from his hiding place in the museum and saves Finn by taking his place and leaving with the investigators despite his fear, he becomes a hero who is deserving of the riches that await him at Westwood. Maia’s loyalty to Clovis also catalyzes her own transformation as she defies the Carters, choosing friendship over social propriety and becoming closer with Finn as they work together to help Clovis and pull off their risky caper.
The Carters
The Carter family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Carter and their twin girls, Gwendolyn and Beatrice, who are about Maia’s age. The Carter family runs a rubber plantation in South America that is encountering considerable financial difficulties, unbeknownst to Maia and her parents’ lawyer, Mr. Murray. The Carters agree to take Maia in, seeking the benefit of the monthly allowance that Mr. Murray sends them to pay for Maia’s living expenses. Far from being a warm and welcoming family, they are cold, cruel, and callous, and both the adults and the children go out of their way to ridicule, bully, and exclude Maia at every turn. Within the larger framework of the novel, these four flat characters also symbolize the narrow-minded prejudices and destructive entitlement that characterize colonialist attitudes, for they eschew any interaction with the Indigenous people or the Amazonian landscape, focusing instead on scheming new ways to acquire additional wealth and social standing. Their collective exhibitions of Human Greed and Exploitation ultimately lead to their comeuppance when they cause a housefire that burns their bungalow to the ground; afterward, Mr. Carter is arrested on suspicion of fraud and embezzlement, and Mrs. Carter and the twins must return to England to take up a life of servitude themselves.
