Castaway
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- For other uses, see Castaway (disambiguation)}}}.
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.
Real occurrences
Fernão Lopez
The Portuguese Fernão Lopez was perhaps the first castaway in extant history when he got 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
An Indian called Will
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.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 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 did later sink 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.
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 aligators. 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. [#endnote_Ashton]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, the entire castaway story was faked. As late as 2002 the full truth of the story was disclosed in a book in Dutch by the Dutch historian Michiel Koolbergen (1953-2002); before that time, the castaway's name had been unknown. The story is available in English, see the reference [#endnote_Hasenbosch]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.
Other castaways
- Nakahama Manjiro
- Tom Neale
- Otokichi
- Pedro Serrano
- 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
Castaways in popular culture
Various novels, television shows and films tell the story of castaways:
- 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 1984 novel by Lucy Irvine 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.
- Lord of the Flies, book and several movie versions.
- 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.
- Hatchet is 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.
- In Life of Pi, the title character, Pi Patel, spends months on a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger.
- The Road to El Dorado
- Titanic (the 1997 film)
- Family Guy episode "The Perfect Castaway"
- Full House episode "Tanner Island"
- Futurama episode "Obsoletely Fabulous"
- The Mighty Boosh episode "The Nightmare of Milky Joe"
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.See also
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
- Adams, Cecil (2 December 2005). [Not necessarily Lost: Are there actual cases of castaways who have been rescued?] at The Straight Dope. Accessed 4 December 2005.
External links
- "[Pilot dumps drunk man on island]" at BBC News – a man is cast away on Porto Santo Island after being abusive on a flight.
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