43 pages • 1 hour read
Katherine RundellThe Explorer
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Exploration as Self-Discovery
The story begins as one of survival and a desire to return home, but becomes in addition to that a story of self-discovery, as each of the children learns about their own hidden talents and inner resources. Each child is an explorer in their own unique way. Lila is endlessly curious about animals, biology, and nature; Con is tenacious and has a “heart with claws” (310); Max is simply eager to experience everything life has to offer. The explorer himself embodies adventure, survival, and an admiration for natural beauty, and he helps the children to see these qualities in themselves. Fred’s survival—and thus that of the group—is made possible by his willingness to take risks for the sake of exploration:
He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted to launch the raft down the river to find the X. He needed to know what it was to be an explorer. There was another kind of hunger in his gut that had nothing to do with food: It was terror and possibility, fused together with hope (116).
In setting out to explore this great unknown, Fred is also exploring the unknown regions of his own psyche.
Fred developed his interest in exploring from reading about men who combed the Amazon in search of golden cities and new civilizations. Ironically, meeting the explorer in the jungle changes Fred’s perspective on what it means to be a true explorer, as he begins to understand the secrets an explorer must sometimes keep to preserve what is beautiful and precious. Fred’s biggest mistake is in wanting to explore for the sake of impressing his father, and it is the explorer who teaches Fred that he need not aim to please others: “Take risks! That’s the thing to do. Get to know what fear feels like. Get to know how to maneuver around it. But!…But make sure the risks you take aren’t to impress someone else” (274).
Upon learning from the explorer and eventually leaving the Amazon, Fred returns home and realizes that exploration comes in many forms. Before him lies the opportunity to form a closer bond with his father—something he deeply desired for years. Fred realizes now that “every human on this earth is an explorer” (320), and he spends the rest of his life pursuing the great unknown.
Hardship as a Catalyst for Friendship
Love and friendship are powerful forces that can grow out of the most unlikely circumstances. For the four children who beat the odds by surviving a plane crash in the Amazon rainforest, friendship becomes the ultimate reward for the trials and challenges they face together. Fred, Con, Lila, and Max become bonded for life because of the challenges they face together. Along the way, they also form a lifelong admiration for the explorer they meet, who in turn learns from the children that it is possible for him to love again.
When the plane first crashes, the children are all strangers to one another. There is no trust between them, and in fact, when the girls meet Fred, they initially treat him as a threat. When the group realizes that they are alone in the wilderness without a way to get home, they must make the risky decision to trust one another so they can find their way home. Of the four, Con is the most reluctant to make friends; she straightforwardly tells Fred that she has no interest in befriending him or anyone else, and just wants to get home. Con’s attitude shifts to the complete opposite perspective by the time the group is flying home; she knows that she has finally found people her age with whom she can relate and connect.
During their time in the Amazon, the group builds trust as they witness their success in overcoming one feat after another. They build a fire together, which breaks the ice between them and starts them on a path of friendship. From there, they navigate the Amazon River together, follow a map to a ruined city, and both Fred and Con help Lila care for her younger brother Max. The friendship of the group is tested multiple times, such as when Fred refuses to keep the ruined city a secret, but it always overcomes these tests in the end.
When the children meet the explorer, he is emotionally and physically isolated as well as wary of allowing himself to care about them. Years of surviving alone in the rainforest have taught him to rely only on himself. The children soon break through his hard exterior, and the explorer begins performing small gestures of kindness, like giving them some salt and herbs for their dinner. The explorer reflects on the changes he experienced in his personal attitude toward love and friendship through meeting the children:
I would gladly have given everything I had—my life, of course, but that’s so obvious it’s boring. I would have burned the entire rain forest to the ground, to hold him for a single minute…But it transpires that the heart has its own gas station, its own coal, its own soap. It will renew, so use it hugely (298).
The explorer sees his own son in Max and does not wish him to die the way his own son did; as a result, the explorer’s love for his son extends to Max and the other children, and he does everything in his power to help them survive.
Perseverance and the Drive to Survive
Persistence in the face of fear, along with the instinctual drive to survive, is what allows the children to live through extreme danger despite their lack of experience. Each person has their own inner drive to survive, which shows itself in both expected and surprising ways. While Lila is most concerned about living and keeping her brother alive so they can return to their parents, Max, Fred, and Con are all motivated by something more than the thought of returning home. Fred is particularly enthusiastic about exploring and is usually the first to take risks or try new things, such as strange foods, honeycomb farming, and building a raft. Fred not only wants to survive; he wants to become known as a brave and bold explorer, and he constantly tries to prove that he is one.
The children demonstrate persistence and the will to survive from the moment the plane crashes. Rather than giving up, they argue over how to solve their dilemma, and eventually, they form a united team that works together for the sake of everyone’s survival. They build a fire, repair an old den, eat bugs, and use a raft to make their way down the river. Along the way, the children bond and help each other succeed. After a few days of learning new skills and discovering their inner strengths, the children start to see a clear image of themselves having survived the ordeal and meeting up again in the future to reminisce and celebrate their lives.
Along with the children, the explorer also demonstrates a strong will to survive, but for his own sake. He no longer wishes to impress others or return to civilization; instead, he survives so that he can protect the ruined city. The explorer is full of advice and philosophical musings regarding survival in the wilderness and life: “If you pay ferocious attention to the world, you will be as safe as it is possible to be” (255). He believes in the children, which gives them the confidence they need to take the final risk in flying the plane to Manaus. The explorer tells Fred, “I think you were built to pursue the things you are afraid of” (306). This piece of wisdom proves to be truer than Fred could have imagined at the time, as he grows up to be a famous explorer.
