Abel's Island

William Steig

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1976

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-13

Chapters 14-20

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Food

The novel opens with a shared meal as Abel and Amanda enjoy a picnic to celebrate their anniversary. Though the picnic is outdoors, the food is lavish and represents Abel’s comfortable existence. For Abel, meals are a pleasurable experience as well as a communal ritual with Amanda. However, once Abel becomes stranded on the island, he is separated from modern life and his relationship to food changes. Eating shifts to a necessary, functional means of survival. Absent the curated culinary delights of civilized life, Abel must forage for nuts and seeds to fill his empty belly and sustain his energy. Often the memories of past meals shared with Amanda comfort him, and certain foods fill him with a nostalgia for home: “The familiar taste made him feel a little more at home on his roost in the middle of nowhere” (16). As winter approaches, Abel’s understanding of sustenance shifts again as he learns he must stockpile food; while he is trapped in the log during the snowstorm, he must ration his supplies.

By spring Abel’s understanding of nutrition has shifted, and he learns to embrace the abundance of nature as he feasts on the new blooms of spring and drinks homemade wine. Unencumbered by ideas of “civilization,” Abel finds a joyful freedom: “Abel ate grass and young violet greens, fresh food with the juice of life. He drank large draughts of his wine and ran about everywhere like a wild animal, shouting and yodeling” (84). Abel has fully given himself over to his natural animal instincts for eating and drinking, and nature’s bounty energizes and thrills him. Though he still misses eating meals at home, the longing has less to do with the food and more with missing the sharing of meals with others. When Gower arrives, Abel immediately extends hospitality and invites Gower to share a drink with him. Once Abel escapes the island, he is grateful to be returning to Amanda but pauses to thank the island for the ways it sustained him. Throughout the narrative, Abel’s changing relationship with finding food and eating mirrors his journey to survival and personal growth.

Clothing

The title page of the novel features the author’s illustration of Abel as a distinguished mouse dressed in a three-piece suit with a cravat, hat, and cane. The opening pages reveal the protagonist as a city-dwelling, upper-class mouse who enjoys fine clothes and food. After a scarf, a piece of Amanda’s clothing, sends Abel on a chase through the storm, he becomes stranded on a deserted island with only the clothes on his back. In his first few days on the island, he worries about the state of his clothes because they are part of his identity: “The mess of wet clothes he wore added to his sense of ineptitude and shame; he was used to their being dry and pressed” (20). Though Abel must focus on his physical survival, he is still concerned that his appearance reflects his character. As his stay on the island lengthens, his clothes deteriorate. Clothing becomes less of a symbol of his refinement and more of a reminder of a life he once lived. Abel once believed that he was defined by his dignified appearance, but island life forces him to relinquish his attachment to material possessions. As his clothes fray and wear out, Abel sheds the emotional trappings of city life and embraces a more minimalist existence that allows for deeper introspection.

Though Abel releases his attachment to his clothing, he never drops the scarf. Even though the scarf is the reason he became lost in the first place, Abel treasures it as a reminder of Amanda. The text relates his connection to it: “he removed from the inner pocket Amanda’s scarf, the bit of beloved gauze that accounted for his being where he was. He kissed the piece of fluff and tucked it inside his shirt” (23). The illustrations reveal that Abel never removes the scarf from his neck, and in his deepest moments of grief and loneliness, the tiny scrap of fabric comforts him. When Abel escapes the island and returns home, he discards his dirty, disheveled clothes and dons his finest outfit for his reunion with Amanda. Though he has learned he can live without the finery, he doesn’t want Amanda to see him so untidy. The novel ends with Abel placing the scarf on the entry table as a sign that his mission to save the scarf is complete and that he has returned to Amanda.

Time

The story begins as Abel and Amanda celebrate one year as a married couple. Abel lives in a civilized, orderly world where time is kept rigidly on a watch or clock and is marked by hours, days, months, and years. When a storm blows Abel onto the island, his relationship with time changes. At first, he is concerned about how much time has passed in relation to being rescued. Knowing that Amanda is worried about his absence, Abel is certain he will be promptly rescued. His fixation on time causes desperate, rushed attempts to escape because his life before this point was orderly and under his control. He thinks to himself, “It was time to be getting home” (17), but his comfortable schedules are useless on the island. Soon, however, Abel realizes that nothing on the island is fast, including finding food and crafting items to aid in his survival. He learns that time works differently in nature, and he must slow down and submit to its rhythms.

Abel eventually resigns to making the island his home, and the seasons mark his time. As the seasons change, Abel explores the cyclical nature of his environment. Abel’s isolation changes his perception of time as days and nights blend together, punctuated by moments of introspection and contemplation. The text says, “Hardly knowing day from night, Abel slept and kept no schedule, and the days came and left, uncounted” (74). Time becomes fluid, allowing Abel to develop a deeper understanding of himself and nature. As he becomes more attuned to the natural world, small shifts like the changing leaf color mark the passing of time. Even when he finds the pocket watch, he winds it only to hear its methodical tick and not to note the time. Though Abel’s solitary year on the island brings him hardship and grief, developing a healthier relationship with time makes Abel wiser and more aware of the fragility of life. Absent the hustle and bustle of city life, Abel’s liberation from traditional timekeeping teaches him the beauty of a slower, more introspective path.