Plot Summary of The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, by Gabriel García Márquez

Plot Summary of “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor”

The plot of The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor, by Gabriel García Márquez, published by Random House, Inc., is very interesting because it gives the reader an in-depth view of what it is like to be stranded at sea.  While stranded all alone on his life raft in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, the main character is tested both mentally and physically over the period of 10 days, without food, water or shelter.  The plot is quite compelling because it is very hard for one to imagine what it would be like to be stranded for days on end in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with nothing more than a shirt, shoes, a set of keys and a few business cards.  When at the mercy of the sea, the red hot sun is beating down on you non-stop throughout the day, food and potable water is unavailable, storms are a constant threat, and the most nerve-wracking of all, the risk of being devoured by a shark persists day after day.  This novel provides the reader with a comprehensive perspective of the different physical feelings, from hunger and thirst to intense sun-burn, as well as the mental aspects such as emotions, regrets, last wishes, hallucinations, and the will to survive of the main character.  This nonfiction/literature novel was originally published in Spanish in 1955 as a series of articles published in a local newspaper in order to chronicle the events of Luis Alejandro Valasco during his tragic journey from the middle of the sea, back to land. The novel was later translated to English and published again in 1986, and became popular worldwide.  In this book report, the important events of the story will be outlined and discussed.  Moreover, the success of the novel will be analyzed and evaluated based on the author’s interpretation of the story and how he chose to tell it.

            In February of 1955, Luis Alejandro Valasco, along with 7 of his shipmates, were washed overboard the Colombian Naval ship, the Caldas, in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.  The ship had been docked for repairs in Mobile, Alabama where the sailors had been living for the past 8 months.  Many of them had found American girlfriends, including Luis, who was seeing a girl by the name of Mary Address.  After all the repairs were complete and all the goodbyes had been said, the Caldas set sail for Cartagena, Colombia.  Not long into the voyage, Luis and 7 of his fellow shipmates were unexpectedly caught by a large wave that washed them overboard during the middle of the night.  Luis noticed a life raft and swam toward it before any of his mates had the chance.  Due to the high winds and currents, Luis was the only one to make it on to the raft.  He desperately tried to paddle toward his mates but to no avail.  Consequently Luis ended up watching 4 of his mates drown while trying to reach the raft.  One of the mates, Luis Rengifo, was only 2 meters from grabbing hold of the life raft before the sea pulled him under; he would later come back to visit Valasco during his dreams while Valasco drifted alone through the Caribbean.  Valasco spent the next 10 days floating on a life raft in the middle of the sea with nothing but his shirt, shoes, keys and a few business cards.  Certain that it would only be a matter of hours before rescue crews would find him, Luis patiently waited in the raft.  Hours went by with no luck.  Luis was starting to become confused at why no one was coming to his rescue.  Eventually planes started to appear in the horizon.  However, the planes were flying quite high above the water, and Luis was only in a small life raft, so none of the pilots were able to see him.  Just as Luis was starting to lose hope, one last plane entered his sights from the horizon.  This plane had come from the same direction as all the others and was flying right towards him, and very low to the sea.  Luis was sure that this pilot had seen him in the raft and was going to send help; alas, help did not come.  Luis spent the next 10 days sleeping very little, and wondering where he was.  At times he asked himself why he hadn’t just died like his fellow shipmates.  Other times he was thankful to still be alive.  Every night at 5:00pm sharp, Luis battled with sharks, noting that they are very “punctual” creatures.  In addition to the recurring danger of sharks, the constant high winds and occasional capsizing of his life raft, made the voyage even more dangerous.  As Luis drifted closer to the coast of Colombia, he became extremely dehydrated from lack of thirst and from being in constant exposure to the sun.  This caused him to become very confused and disoriented.  He often hallucinated and started to care less and less about surviving.  At the peak of Luis’ hallucinations, his best friend Jaime Majarrés would appear in the middle of the night on his life raft and converse with him.  When Luis was finally able to see land, he initially thought it was a hallucination.  After convincing himself that it was in fact real, Luis abandoned his life raft and swam an exhausting 2km swim to the shore.  There, some locals near the city of Urabá, Colombia, found him.  The locals helped him find his way to a doctor and eventually home.  The entire town, some six hundred or so people, carried him in a hammock to his home city of Cartegena.  Upon arriving back home he was treated as a local hero.  Fame and money was coming at him from every direction, even though in his mind there was nothing heroic about his survival.  In Luis’ mind, all he did was simply wait and hope he would survive.  Luis was sent to a hospital where he was kept under constant supervision by a guard.  No media was allowed to visit or ask questions about his story by rule of the Colombian government.  One reporter was daring enough to dress up as a doctor in a feeble attempt to interview Luis.  Unfortunately for him all he was able to leave with were a couple lousy drawings he had asked Luis to produce.  The reporter would later make up his own version of Luis’ journey based on the uninformative drawings he had managed to escape the hospital with.  These exaggerated stories would create the rumors of heroism and make Luis famous.

            The main reason why this book is so appealing to the reader is because it tells the story of a very wild adventure.  Although the main character did not choose to embark on this adventure, it was an adventure nonetheless.  Not many people have the opportunity to experience the exhilaration of a potentially fatal experience like that of Luis’, and actually come out alive to tell about it.  Most people could never even claim that they have caught a seagull with their bare hands, like in Chapter 7 when Luis sat completely still with his hand open waiting for a seagull to get cocky enough to even dare to come close to his hand.  Catching a seagull would end up being the least exciting of all the events Luis would come to experience.  In the next Chapter, Chapter 8, Luis tells about how he managed to capture and kill a fish while stranded on his life raft.  Yet after eating only one bite, he accidentally dropped it overboard and had a one-on-one battle with a killer shark in a struggle to win the fish back.  These are the kind of events that, when told by a skilled author, keep the reader thoroughly entertained, not wanting to put their book down.  For a lot of readers the psychological ups and downs throughout the duration of the voyage may be more interesting.  The author does a very good job of detailing the emotions felt by Luis at each point in the story.  The dramatic mood swings felt by Luis that were influenced by the often unpredictable turn of events in the middle of the sea, gives rise to a wide array of emotion and self reflection.  Feelings of regret, remorse and self-pity are not uncommon in this novel.  However, for every minute Luis is feeling down there is always an exciting, exhilarating event that drives his determination to survive back up from his previously depressed mood.  An example of this is told in Chapter 10.  Here, Luis is so discouraged after spending 8 days on the life raft that he simply wants to die.  He even says as he lays face down in the life raft, “I thought I was dying. And that thought filled me with a strange, dim hope.” (pg. 75)  It is clear that Luis has lost all interest in survival.  He feels that he has nothing to live for anymore and that death would be a better alternative than suffering any more time on his dreaded life raft in the blistering sun.  Yet, only moments later, an enormous sea turtle approaches him.  Luis becomes startled knowing that the turtle could easily tip his raft, putting him at mercy to the ferocious sharks that promptly circle his raft every evening.  At that moment Luis tells the reader that, “That terrible vision rekindled my fear.  But fear revived me.” (pg. 76)  At this point in the novel, the author demonstrates the absolute rollercoaster ride that Luis is on in terms of his motivation and will to survive.  It is this aspect that demonstrates the type of events that cause a man to lose hope, but find it all over again in the blink of an eye.  Readers will find these experiences unfamiliar and thus quite interesting.  One other interesting aspect of this novel is the way that society treated Luis after he was found.  It is rather odd that he would be treated as a hero for simply waiting on a raft until he was blown to shore.  One would expect that society acknowledge his remarkable stroke of luck, but by no means make him a hero.  Furthermore, the fact that he accepted this title of heroism is even more interesting.  Luis makes it clear that he thought he was unworthy of such a title, but when the government and mass media were forcing it upon him, it seems like an awfully hard thing to turn down.  These peer pressures become a force that ends up making Luis agree to something he normally wouldn’t agree to.    Because the heroic title was forced upon Luis, it became inevitable that his story would be over exaggerated.    The media was also not allowed to formally interview him, which forced them to predict the events of Luis’ adventure, in which case ended up being completely false.  This is where the author’s purpose comes in.  Gabriel claims in the beginning of the novel, before the story starts, that he interviewed Luis for about 2 weeks prior to starting to write the novel.  In his interview he asks many tricky questions that might lead Luis to contradict himself, thus revealing the truths and fallacies in the story.  This approach to writing the novel intrigues many readers that were interested in hearing the truth and not the exaggerated tails of the untruthful media reporters.  This novel puts to rest any exaggerations or rumors that were circulating in the past.

            Gabriel García Márquez does a wonderful job of finding truth in Luis’ story and writing it in an extremely appealing fashion.  Readers will feel compelled to learn of the exciting tales of Luis’ adventure and fight for his life after being tossed from the naval ship, the Caldas.  Gabriel’s purpose in writing this novel was to sort through all of the over-exaggerations, and down-right falsifications that were fabricated by media reporters after learning of Luis’ survival.  In order to do this Gabriel had to thoroughly investigate the events of the 10 days, including all photo evidence, weather patterns, and historic events during that period in order to compare them to Luis’ story, in hopes that everything would match up.  Taking all of this into consideration, it is safe to say that Gabriel did indeed succeed in achieving his purpose in writing this novel.  He provided the reader with an accurate and compelling story, which is completely fictional.  The writing of the book is very intriguing and helpful in getting the true emotions felt by the characters across to the reader.  Also taking into account that the majority of the novel is written about one single character, it is remarkable that Gabriel has the skills to keep the reader’s attention throughout the entire novel.  The biggest strength of this book is that the events are historical, so the imagination of the author is not really required as much as the discipline to accurately map out all of the events that took place.  This makes Gabriel’s job a little bit easier when approaching how to go about writing the story.  However, the weakness of this story is that there is only one character to focus on for the majority of the novel.  This may cause some readers to become bored because the scene is not changing all that much.  With this in mind, I personally feel that Gabriel did an exceptional job of keeping the reader compelled with the events of the story.  I was able to read the whole book from front to back without becoming bored or uninterested at all.  This was a rather exciting book to read and considering how short it is, and easy to read, I would recommend it to anyone.

            Overall, this novel by Gabriel García Márquez, is a very compelling and exciting read.  Not once did I want to put the book down while reading it.  This is mainly due to the exciting and unimaginable events told in the story.  The different scenarios, whether they be physically or emotionally challenging, evoke a keen sense of interest in the reader.  Exciting events come one after the other in this novel and are told in such descriptive detail that it is simply a treat to read.  The complexities of the human mind are also outlined during Luis Alejandro Valasco’s 10 day voyage across the Caribbean Sea.  Luis’ determination and will to live cannot be described by anything other than remarkable.  All in all, this novel tells a wonderful story in a very descriptive and compelling manner.