Boon Island - Kenneth Roberts [47]
Roberts's dramatization of this decision is one of the most emotional and chilling sections in the bookand one Roberts fortunately does not overdo, for he intended the novel not to be a morality story of cannibalism but one of survival. Because Langman's account is signed by Mellen and Whitethe same two who refused to eat the meatRoberts of course portrays them as Langman's henchmen throughout the entire story:
When we returned exhausted and depressed to the tent to feed those comrades who had lain there, sunk in helplessness because of some frightened quirk of their disgusting brains, Langman, White and Mellen, as able-bodied as any of us, refused to eat.
"An insult," Langman mumbled, "to the spirit of a friend."
"Langman," Captain Dean said, "my duty by you is done. Eat or don't eat, as you please. But my duty to the rest of us is not done, and if I hear any more talk out of you about this meat being anybody's spirit, you'll rue the day!"
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"Are you threatening me?" Langman asked.
"Yes, I'm threatening you," Captain Dean said. "If you pour out your spleen on these others, I'll protect them by stopping your mouth. This meat I'm offering is nobody's spirit. It's beef. It was animated once by a soul and a spirit, but the soul and the spirit have gone from this island, leaving only beef behind." (29899)
As Langman explained in his account of the wreck of the Nottingham Galley, he, Mellen, and White ate their share of the dead man the next day. Roberts writes in Boon Island that Langman tells the captain that the three changed their minds because they realized "it's not a sin to eat beef. When we understood it was beef, we saw we'd made a mistake" (302).
While book reviewers were pleased to see a new Roberts novel in bookstores, many shared the opinion of one of the author's close friends, who regarded the story as "a failure if judged by the magnificent qualities of his earlier books." 12 As a reviewer for the Chicago Tribune elaborated: "This novel lacks the range of character, setting, action, and reflection of Roberts' previous books. Instead of that full fare it offers a somber study in merciless hunger and pitiless coldand in the greed and endurance, the treachery and loyalty that emerge in men under stress."13
But Boon Island is more than just this "somber study." Because Roberts, throughout his career, was intent on producing works of fiction that were both historically accurate and readable, he seldom used symbolism or allegories. With Boon Island, however, his last novel, not only are his characters symbolic of good and evil but his geography is as well. When the men are finally rescued Roberts several times contrasts England with the United States, portraying America as the safe and secure haven where a man can achieve his potential through diligence and hard work, as opposed to a corrupt and amoral eighteenth-century Europe inhabited by scoundrels, thieves, and ne'er-do-wells. When Miles Whitworth tells one of their rescuers, Colonel William
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Pepperrell, that he, Captain Dean, and Henry Dean must return to England to defend themselves against Langman's expected attacks, he explains: "'Colonel,' I said, "we know people like yourselves and these wonderful friends we've made in Portsmouth wouldn't believe Langman; but people in England aren't like that. Those around the docks believe anything they hear about people of property or position. They're too ignorant to investigateto find out the truth'" (368).
"Telling the truth" is a common theme in virtually all of Roberts's novels. In Rabble in Arms, for example, his narrator's purpose is "to tell the truththe truth