From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids
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For other uses, see Castaway (disambiguation).
Castaways may need to survive on a
desert island.
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island either to evade their captors or the world in general. Alternatively a person or item can be cast away, meaning rejected or discarded.
The provisions and resources available to castaways allow them to live on the island until other people arrive to take them off the island. However, such rescue missions may never happen if the person is not known to still be alive, the fact that they are missing is unknown or if the island is not mapped. These scenarios have given rise to the plots of numerous stories in the form of novels and film.
[edit] Real occurrences
[edit] Fernão Lopez
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Main article: Fernão Lopez
The Portuguese Fernão Lopez was marooned on the island of Saint Helena in 1513. He had lost a hand and much of his face as a punishment for mutiny. With some interruptions he stayed on the island until his death in 1545.
[edit] A Miskito called Will
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Main article: Will (Indian)
In 1681, a Miskito named Will (he had been given that name by his English comrades) was sent ashore as part of an English foraging party to Más a Tierra. When he was hunting for goats in the interior of the island he suddenly saw his comrades departing in haste after having spotted the approach of enemies, leaving Will behind to survive until he was picked up in 1684.
[edit] Alexander Selkirk
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Main article: Alexander Selkirk
The Juan Fernández Islands, to which Más a Tierra belongs, was to have a more famous occupant from October 1703 when Alexander Selkirk made the decision to stay there. (Selkirk had been born in Lower Largo in Scotland in 1680). Selkirk was concerned about the condition of the Cinque Ports, on which he was sailing, and remained on the island – the ship later sunk with most of its crew being lost. Being a voluntary castaway, Selkirk was able to gather numerous provisions to help him to survive, including a musket, gunpowder, carpenter's tools, a knife, a Bible, and his clothing. He survived on the island for four years and four months, building huts and hunting the plentiful wildlife before his rescue on 2 February 1709. His adventures were a direct inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, a novel by Daniel Defoe first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English. In 1966 Más a Tierra was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island.
[edit] Philip Ashton
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Main article: Philip Ashton
Philip Ashton, born in Marblehead in New England in 1702, was captured by pirates while fishing near the coast of Nova Scotia in the June of 1722. He managed to escape in March 1723 when their ship landed at Roatán in the Bay Islands of Honduras, hiding in the jungle until the pirates left him there. He survived for 16 months, in spite of many insects, tropical heat and alligators. He had no equipment at all until he met another castaway, an Englishman. The Englishman disappeared after a few days but he left behind a knife, gunpowder, tobacco and more. Ashton was finally rescued by the Diamond, a ship from Salem.[1]
[edit] Leendert Hasenbosch
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Main article: Leendert Hasenbosch
Leendert Hasenbosch was a Dutch ship's officer (a bookkeeper), probably born in 1695. He was set ashore on uninhabited Ascension Island on 5 May 1725 as a punishment for sodomy. He was left behind with a tent and a survival kit and an amount of water for about four weeks. He had bad luck that no ships called at the island during his stay. He ate seabirds and green turtles but he probably died of thirst after about six months. He wrote a diary that was found by British mariners in January 1726 who brought the diary to Britain. The diary was rewritten and published a number of times.
In fact, however, the entire castaway story was faked. As late as 2002 the full truth of the story was disclosed in a book by the Dutch historian Michiel Koolbergen (1953-2002); before that time, the castaway's name had been unknown. The story is available in English.[2]
[edit] Charles Barnard
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Main article: Charles Barnard
In 1812, the British ship Isabella, captained by George Higton, was shipwrecked off Eagle Island (part of the Falkland Islands). Most of the crew were rescued by the American sealer Nanina, commanded by Captain Charles Barnard. However, realising that they would require more provisions for the expanded number of passengers, Barnard and a few others went out in a party to retrieve more food. During his absence the Nanina was taken over by the British crew, who left them on the island. Barnard and his party were finally rescued in November of 1814. In 1829, Barnard wrote A Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Captain Charles Barnard detailing the happenings.
[edit] Other castaways
- Gerald Kingsland
- Nakahama Manjiro
- Tom Neale a 20th century man from New Zealand who voluntarily stayed alone on a small island
- Otokichi
- Pedro Serrano
- Ada Blackjack an Inuit woman on Wrangel Island between 1921 and 1923
- 22 men of Ernest Shackleton's crew on Elephant Island off the Antarctic Peninsula for 4 months in 1916
- Alain Bombard
- HMAV Bounty's mutineers and Tahitian women
- Sixteen people who were washed onto an island during the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and were rescued after two months
- Three Mexicans who were rescued near the Marshall Islands after drifting across the Pacific Ocean for nine months.[1]
[edit] Castaways in popular culture
Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday by Carl Offterdinger.
Various novels, television shows and films tell the story of castaways:
- Baby Island, a 1937 novel by Carol Ryrie Brink about two preteen sisters caring for four babies on a South Sea island
- The Blue Lagoon, a 1908 romance novel by Henry De Vere Stacpoole which was adapted into a 1980 film starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins
- Cast Away, a 2000 film starring Tom Hanks, directed by Robert Zemeckis
- Castaway, a 1986 film starring Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed, and directed by Nicolas Roeg based on the book Castaway by Lucy Irvine (next).
- Castaway, a 1984 book by Lucy Irvine describing her life with Gerald Kingsland on a deserted island which was adapted into a 1986 film starring Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed
- Castaway 2000, a British reality television series in which a volunteer community lived for a year on the previously uninhabited Taransay in the Outer Hebrides
- Gilligan's Island, an American TV sitcom which aired on CBS from 1964 to 1967
- Hatchet, a novel that follows the life of a teenage boy as he survives in the Canadian wilderness after the plane he was on crashes. While he was brought into the situation by a plane, Hatchet's plot (and most survivalist fiction) features many similar elements to castaway stories.
- Life of Pi, in which the title character, Pi Patel, spends months on a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger
- Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, and several movie versions
- Johnny Castaway, a screensaver -pehaps the most extensive ever- that follows the daily exploits of the screensaver's namesake.
- Lost, a 2004 drama series
- Robinson Crusoe, a novel by Daniel Defoe based loosely on the real life of Alexander Selkirk, first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English
- The Swiss Family Robinson, an 1812 book by Johann David Wyss that has been adapted into various film and television versions
Castaways are part of other stories as well, where the event is not the central plot but is still an important aspect. Examples include:
- The Black Stallion (film)
- The Road to El Dorado
- Titanic (the 1997 film)
The idea of a character becoming a castaway is common in television series, particularly ones that utilise the scenario for comic effect – it is a more extreme version of a character being stranded, but less likely and therefore more appropriate for non-serious series. Series that have had an episode about castaways include:
- Family Guy episode "The Perfect Castaway"
- Full House episode "Tanner Island"
- Futurama episode "Obsoletely Fabulous"
- The Mighty Boosh episode "The Nightmare of Milky Joe"
[edit] Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 chatshow in which the subject is invited to consider themselves as a castaway on a desert island, and then select their eight favourite records, favourite book and a luxury inanimate object to occupy their time. This concept has become so widespread as to have become a part of popular culture.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Pirate Biographies" at The New England Pirate Museum. Accessed 4 December 2005.
- ^ Alex Ritsema, book "A Dutch Castaway on Ascension Island in 1725" ISBN 978-1-4116-9832-1 2006 and Michiel Koolbergen, book "Een Hollandse Robinson Crusoë", ISBN ISBN 90-74622-23-2 2002
[edit] External links
