Island

Island is a 1962 novel by Aldous Huxley. It tells the story of Will Farnaby’s experience on an isolated island called Pala. The novel is written in third person limited omniscient point of view focused on Will’s perspective. While recovering from injury on the island, Will discovers a world that is starkly different from his native England and Western civilization. Through his time on the island, Will changes from a cynical and indifferent Westerner to a man who embraces the Palanese alternative to the West’s exploitative capitalism.

Many readers have seen Island as a counterpoint to Huxley’s famous dystopian novel, Brave New World. Island is a utopian novel. It presents new ways of seeing the role of government where greed, envy, power, and dominance are not primary motivating forces. Among the parallels between the two novels are the societal impacts of widespread drug use; sexuality and procreation; education; and religion.

Island is written for Western audiences. Much of its significant sequences take the form of philosophical arguments in which the people of Pala offer counterpoints to Will’s—and by extension Western culture’s—assertions, claims, and preconceived notions. Whereas in Brave New World, Huxley examines the ominous end result of modern Western governance, Island offers alternative ideas and solutions for the West to avoid the dystopian future of Brave New World. Other works by Huxley include Crome Yellow (1921) and Brave New World Revisited (1932).

This guide used the First Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition published in 2009.

Content Warning: The guide quotes offensive language about children with congenital disabilities.

Plot Summary

The opening sequence of the novel mimics the thought process of a man who has presumably been injured and is slipping in and out of consciousness. A Mynah bird speaks the opening words; between its chants of “attention” the injured man has a flashback of the events that led to his wife’s death. The man is eventually discovered by two children, one of whom runs off in search of help and one who stays with the man, who we learn is named Will Farnaby. Will is an Englishman and a journalist. He is shipwrecked on the shores of this island, which is called Pala.

A man named Dr. Robert MacPhail arrives to help. Once stabilized, Will is brought to Dr. Robert’s office where he is treated for a broken leg. As part of the treatment, Will is visited by Susila MacPhail, Dr. Robert’s daughter-in-law. She hypnotizes Will. While in a trance, Will once again has flashbacks to past experiences in his life. He is temporarily relieved of intense pain.

While recuperating, Will is visited by a young man named Murugan, the son of Pala’s monarch, the Rani. During his meeting with Murugan, we learn that Will has ulterior motives for being in Pala. He uses his journalist credentials as a primary explanation but reveals that he is also acting on behalf of a capitalist named Joe Aldehyde. Aldehyde wants to secure access to Pala’s untapped oil reserves.

Soon, Murugan is joined in Will’s room by Murugan’s mother—the Rani, or Pala’s monarch—and a man named Bahu, an associate from the nearby island of Rendang-Lobo. Will discovers that all three of them are amenable to negotiating a deal for Pala’s oil reserves. The Rani does not think highly of Palanese culture and the way in which the island is governed. Having spent substantial time in Switzerland, the Rani and her son Murugan are highly influenced by Western culture. They see Pala as an underdeveloped, backwards country, and have designs of changing it once Murugan ascends to the throne. This will happen soon, when he turns 18.

Dr. Robert gives Will a copy of the island’s governing manifesto, a work written by the Old Raja, a former ruler, entitled Notes on What’s What, and What It Might be Reasonable to do about What’s What. From it, Will learns of the philosophical foundations from which the current governing system evolved. At the heart of the system is a focus on individual wellbeing over profit. Individual self-actualization is paramount and supersedes the needs of the state.

Eventually, Will recovers enough to become mobile and tours the island. At a mountain temple, he witnesses a coming-of-age ceremony that involves rock-climbing and partaking of Moksha medicine, a hallucinogenic mushroom. He tours a school, where he discovers that children are educated differently than in the West. At the heart of the educational system is a holistic approach combining traditional Western subjects such as math and reading with new-age psychology and Eastern philosophy. Will attends a public performance of the Greek play Oedipus Rex, which has been renamed and adapted into a puppet show with some of the play’s major events altered to fit Palanese society and culture. All the while, Will challenges his hosts, who defend their beliefs convincingly.

Will undergoes a dramatic change in his outlook on life. This is in part due to his discussions with Pala’s residents, but mostly because of Susila MacPhail, who serves as Will’s therapist for much of his recovery. In his sessions with Susila, Will pinpoints moments in his life that led him to become the emotionally vacuous, cynical man that he is at the novel’s outset. He comes to understand how Western culture has conditioned him to lose sight of the inherent value of treating people with compassion and kindness. He realizes that his life has no purpose, that it is void of real meaning. The therapy sessions provide Will the opportunity to reflect on his life. They also offer an alternative way of living.

As the novel nears its climax, Will faces a choice. Murugan arrives with a notice that provides power of attorney to Will so that the proposed oil reserves deal can be signed immediately. Will declines to sign. It is a small but significant gesture that demonstrates that Pala has changed Will for the better. He is then taken to a hospital where Dr. Robert’s wife Lakshmi is about to die from cancer. Will witnesses an entirely different kind of death than what he has seen in Western life. In some ways, it is beautiful in spite of the overwhelming sadness felt by those left behind.

Will gains even further insight into the nature of consciousness and existence. Susila offers Will the Moksha medicine, which produces intense sensory reaction and hallucinations. Will’s experience unlocks his consciousness and makes him feel more connected to the energy at the center of all life. At the end of his session, Will is a new man; this is evidenced by an intimate, sensual connection with Susila that does not involve sexual lust.

As the novel concludes, Murugan has turned 18 and has ascended to the throne. His first order of business is a military style invasion and occupation of Pala. Will and Susila hear gunshots off in the distance. While the narrator does not explicitly reveal who has been killed, the implication is that Dr. Robert was the target all along. The drive to modernize and exploit the island for economic purposes triumphs. Presumably, Murugan will impose a more Western style of governance and economic system over Pala, threatening the utopian dream of Pala’s forbearers.