Reasons for Human Population on Santa Rosalia essays

Reasons for Human Population on Santa Rosalia essays The fact that the island was remote and uninhabited, the Captain was incompetent, the colonists were flexible, and Mary Hepburn had a genius plan of artificial insemination all kept the population of humans on Santa The Galapagos islands, being located west of the Peruvian coast, "separated from the mainland by one thousand kilometers of very deep water, very cold water fresh from the Antarctic" (Vonnegut 3). The islands are described as a "sailor's nightmare where the bits of land were mockeries, without safe anchorage or shade or sweet water or dangling fruit, or human being of any kind" (17). Santa Rosalia was the "northernmost of the islands, so all alone, so far from the rest" (43). However remote, the islands were mysteriously occupied with life forms such as geckos, rice rats, lava lizards, spiders, ants, grasshoppers, and tortoises. What Darwin referred to as magic for these animals to have lived on these islands, also proved to be magic for those aboard Bahia de Darwin as well. Another contributing factor to the colonists' survival was the inadequate Adolph von Kleist. In fact, we are told that the "combination of the Captain's incompetence . . . has turned out to be of incalculable value to present-day humankind" (139-40). If the ship had ever reached Balta, which the Captain desperately wanted to do, those aboard "would have found it devastated and depopulated by yet another package of dagonite" (233). His incompetence kept the ship at sea for dayshe had no map and continued to rely on his "big brain," which was misleading him. He kept steering the ship to put the sun where it was supposed to be, according to his big brain. We are later told that the ship was sailing far too north. (243). About a week later, they are still lost, with the Captain still "turning the ship this way and then that way" (247). In addition, as Leon tells us that if the Captain...