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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Cloud Atlas, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cycles of History
Greed
Slavery and Imprisonment
Aging and Mortality
Summary
Analysis
Thursday, 7th November—Writing in his journal, Adam Ewing talks about a recent experience he had outside an Indian village: he noticed some tracks and follows them to find Dr. Henry Goose, a surgeon who is white and from London. Adam asks Dr. Goose if he can help him, but Dr. Goose just shakes his head. He shows Adam a handkerchief full of teeth and claims they’re used to make dentures and are extremely valuable.
Cloud Atlas, which contains six separate but interconnected stories, starts in the 1800s. For the first narrator, Adam Ewing, author David Mitchell mimics the style of real journals from that time period (while lightly modernizing some of the spellings and language). Fittingly, the novel begins with a man named Adam—in the Book of Genesis, Adam is the name of the first man that God creates.
Themes
Henry explains that he is in India because an old marchioness in London spread rumors about him that caused society to shun him. The marchioness herself wears dentures made of human teeth. Henry plans to go back to London and tell everyone that the Marchioness got her teeth from a “cannibal” in the South Pacific, then when people ask for evidence, he’ll fling his own new collection of teeth in her face. Adam Ewing thinks Henry is crazy, so he quickly says goodbye.
Adam Ewing’s story takes place at the height of both colonialism and the slave trade, when global sea routes connected different parts of the world to a greater extent than ever before. Henry’s reference to the South Pacific native people as “cannibals” reflects the prejudices that many white men like Adam (an American) and Henry (a Briton) would have held during the time period.
Themes
Friday, 8th November—Adam Ewing looks out his window at a shipyard and finds that his ship, the Prophetess, still needs a week of work before it’s ready. In the meantime, he’s staying at a place called the Musket, and he happens to see Henry (who is also staying there), and they have breakfast together. Adam decides that, while Henry has his quirks, Adam judged him too harshly the previous day. They enjoy conversing, and Henry has a chess set that they can use until either Adam’s ship is repaired or the ship Henry plans to take arrives.
Chess often symbolizes a battle of wits and foreshadows a future conflict between Henry and Adam, even though it brings them together here. The name of Adam’s ship—the Prophetess—is significant for several reasons. On the one hand, the book contains several religious themes, and a prophetess is a religious figure. The novel also deals with the future, which is what a prophetess would predict. Finally, “prophetess” may be a play on the word “profit” since profits and greed play an essential role in each story within Cloud Atlas.
Themes
Saturday, 9th November—Adam Ewing’s ship still looks like it’s in bad shape, so he and Henry head for a local beach. As they get outside of the Indian village, they hear a humming sound. They come across a public flogging where they are the only two white people present but all castes of Indians have gathered. The humming comes from the darkest-skinned, enslaved people, who make a humming sound as they watch the punishment. The victim is tied up and looks older, with gray hair. Suddenly, the man being flogged looks Adam in the eye. Adam asks the people what crime the man committed, but he soon realizes that it would be better for him and Henry to leave.
The scene Adam witnesses conveys the brutality of slavery. Although this passage takes place on a Pacific island, it shows clear parallels to slavery stories from America and elsewhere in the world, suggesting slavery’s global reach. Eyes are a recurring motif in the story, and Adam’s eye contact with the man being whipped suggests that they share a connection, even if Adam hesitates to acknowledge it at first.
Themes
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Sunday, 10th November—Adam Ewing finds that the place where he’s staying has turned into a makeshift bordello, where white men, including Mr. Boerhaave (the first mate of Adam’s ship), find Indian girls. Adam and Henry disapprove, so they decide to go out instead of taking breakfast. Adam goes back to hide his journal and finds one of the white men having sex with an Indian girl in his own bed. When Adam complains to the innkeeper, the innkeeper just offers him a discount on one of the girls. Adam declines, protesting that he is a husband and a father.
Mr. Boerhaave represents the boorish way that white foreigners treated locals in the Pacific. The innkeeper’s indifference to Boerhaave’s actions suggests that Boerhaave’s behavior is typical, and that Adam is unusual for disapproving.
Themes
Adam Ewing and Henry go to the local chapel for a simple service. Afterward, an old man from their chapel named Mr. Evans invites them to a meal. They accept and go with him to his farmstead. Over the meal, Mr. Evans and another guest, Mr. D’Arnoq, talk about places they’ve traveled, including Chatham Isle. Henry asks if there are any Christian missionaries in Chatham Isle, but Mr. Evans says the aboriginal Maori don’t like when outsiders spoil their “Moriori.” Adam isn’t familiar with the word “Moriori,” but he learns from Mr. D’Arnoq that it has an interesting history, which Adam promises to recount in later entries of his journal.
The chapel represents an attempt by white European and American travelers to bring their own culture abroad. While Mr. Boerhaave interacts with the local culture like a conqueror, Adam tries to isolate himself from it. While Adam’s behavior is less aggressive than Boerhaave’s, it nevertheless suggests discomfort with the local way of life and a belief in the superiority of the customs of his own culture.
Themes
Monday, 11th November—While Adam Ewing and Henry are having breakfast at the inn, Mr. Evans comes to see them. A widowed neighbor of Mr. Evans needs a doctor urgently, so Henry grabs his kit and rushes off to help.
European doctors are rare in this part of the world, so Henry Goose finds his services in high demand.
Themes
Adam Ewing begins recounting the story that he heard from Mr. Evans and Mr. D’Arnoq about the Moriori people of the Chatham Isle (also called Rēkohu in the local language), the island they’re currently on. Mr. Evans believes the Moriori are the descendants of Jews exiled from Spain, while Mr. D’Arnoq feels that they must be Maori who got stranded on remote islands. The Moriori live in isolation, without even a word for “race,” and they still get much of their food from foraging.
Although the Moriori are a real group of people, Mr. Evans and Mr. D’Arnoq don’t know the real history, and so the version they tell combines fact with myth. Their ignorance reflects how, despite how connected the world was becoming, some subjects still remained a mystery.
Themes
What distinguishes the Moriori from similar isolated island tribes is their unusual religion, which strictly forbids murder. Any Moriori who kills someone also destroys their own mana and gets immediately ostracized from the tribe—they pretend they can’t even see the murderer. And so, they’ve lived without war, possibly for millennia.
Mr. Evans and Mr. D’Arnoq seem to exaggerate elements of the Moriori history. Although they seem to admire the Moriori, their idealized version of the story distorts the truth and exoticizes the Moriori.
Themes
Then, one day fifty years ago, the British ship the HMS Chatham landed on the Moriori islands. They introduce foreign plants and slaughter many seals for their pelts, marking the beginning of the end for of the traditional Moriori way of life. Whalers come to the area, and they bring diseases with them, further eroding the Moriori traditions.
The Chatham (the ship) represents the brutality of colonialism. The British violently exploit the land and even impose a new name on it, reflecting how colonialism destroys local traditions.
Themes
Sailors report back to New Zealand that the Moriori islands are full of valuable eels and shellfish to harvest, with a native population that never fights back. A ship of 500 Maori men and women sets off to settle the islands, but the ship lacks proper supplies, and the passengers arrive sick and weak. The Moriori have met Maori before and never had trouble, so they help tend to the sick Maori on the ship. But then another ship with 400 Maori arrives, and they begin claiming the Chathams as their own.
While Mr. Evans and Mr. D’Arnoq seem to admire the peacefulness of the Moriori, the Maori see the Moriori’s pacificism as an opportunity. The Maori themselves have been victims of colonialism, showing how cycles of violence can lead to role reversals, with victims becoming perpetrators.
Themes
The Moriori men go off to debate whether they’ll still lose their mana if they kill foreign Maori, but the elders insist on remaining peaceful, even toward enemies. Meanwhile, the Maori try to overcome their numerical disadvantage by striking first. When the Moriori men get back from their counsel, they find that the Maori have already slain many of the women and children.
The Moriori elders have the strongest connection to the old traditions, and so they are most adamant about interpreting old doctrines literally, whereas the younger Moriori are more willing to adapt their ways, illustrating a generational divide.
Themes
At this point in the story, Adam Ewing interrupts to ask Mr. Evans and Mr. D’Arnoq why none of the white settlers on the island tried to stop the Maori. Mr. Evans tells him that when Maori warriors enter a blood frenzy, they become like sharks. Writing in his journal in the present, Adam muses that as much as God loves peace, it doesn’t help if your neighbors don’t like peace.
This journal entry deals with the difficult subject of pacificism. Adam, like many, acknowledges the virtues of pacificism, but he wonders if it is a viable philosophy in such a violent world. Most of the other stories in the novel also explore this theme to some extent.
Themes
Night—Adam Ewing asks around at his inn, the Musket, and finds that many people don’t like Mr. D’Arnoq, who is rumored to be mixed-race. They also don’t like the Moriori, with one drunk Maori telling Adam that the whole history of the Moriori is all a story invented by Mr. D’Arnoq so that he has an excuse to take Chatham Isle from the Maori. A nearby white man suggests that the Maori did white people a favor by clearing out the Moriori. Adam is horrified, believing that white men should “civilize” the “Black races” by converting them instead of killing them. One man points out Adam’s hypocrisy, since America (where Adam is from) still has slavery. Henry remains ambivalent on the value of missionaries.
The different versions of the story that Adam hears at the bar suggests that different people hold their own versions of the truth. Although Adam has demonstrated that he’s more tolerant than people around him like Mr. Boerhaave, he still holds some racist views, particularly his opinion that it’s possible to put all non-white people into a single group that needs to be “civilized.”
Themes
Tuesday, 12th November—Captain Molyneux, the captain of Adam Ewing’s ship, comes to look at the progress of the ship’s repairs in the shipyard. To Adam’s surprise, the man asks to speak with Henry in private. Later—Adam finds out the captain has an illness that he doesn’t want to talk about. Although Henry also doesn’t say anything, it seems the captain has gout.
Captain Molyneux’s shame about his illness suggests that he fears looking weak. Perhaps he has good reason to fear looking weak, since the Moriori themselves became victims of the Maori because they looked like such an easy target.
Themes
Wednesday, 13th November—One morning, while Henry is off treating the widow again, Adam Ewing goes to climb a hill called Conical Tor to get a better view of Chatham Isle. It’s a tough climb, and when he makes it to the top, there’s too much mist to see anything. At the top of Conical Tor is a crater. Adam gets startled while exploring the crater and fears it’s an evil spirit, but it turns out to just be a bird. Nevertheless, he suddenly feels himself falling into the crater.
The “evil spirit” that Adam believes he sees will become significant much later in the story, gaining new meaning in particular in Chapter 6. Falling is another common motif in the novel and usually symbolizes how, despite a character’s best efforts, they aren’t in control of what’s going on around them.
Themes
Moss and mulch in the crater cushion Adam Ewing’s fall. His eyes adjust to the darkness, and he sees faces carved into the wood of trees. Adam thinks it must be the work of the Moriori. He hears a noise and asks whoever’s there to show themselves, but it’s just a salamander. Adam wants to get out. After a struggle, he finally manages to climb over the crater’s lip. He doesn’t tell anyone about the tree carvings, which he calls “dendroglyphs,” since he doesn’t want white collectors to find and sell them.
Adam’s fall into darkness gives this passage a dreamlike quality. Although Adam’s story is primarily a work of historical fiction, other stories in the novel contain more fantastical elements, and touches of fantasy appear in the grounded stories like Adam’s. This passage may be a joking reference to Biblical Adam, who also famously “fell,” although his fall wasn’t a literal fall into a crater but instead a moral “fall.”
Themes
Evening—Henry gets back to the Musket after treating the widow. He’s concerned to see Adam Ewing’s injuries (from falling into the crater). Since Adam isn’t sure when he’ll see Henry—or any skilled doctor—again, he tells him about his injuries and some “spells” he’s been having lately. Henry advises him to get back to San Francisco and see a specialist on tropical parasites. After hearing this, Adam doesn’t sleep well.
Tropical parasites represent how men like Adam Ewing aren’t suited to life in places like the Chatham Islands, where Adam is an outsider. The island seems to be physically repelling Adam, first by dragging him into a crater, then by giving him parasites.
Themes
Thursday, 14th November—In the morning, Adam Ewing finally boards the Prophetess and sets sail. His cabin is cramped, making the voyage unpleasant. Adam gets a pleasant surprise, however, when he suddenly sees Henry. It turns out Henry accepted a position as the ship’s doctor.
In general, Adam seems to prefer keeping company not just with white men, but specifically with white men of his own social status, like the doctor Henry Goose.
Themes
Friday, 15th November—Many sailors are superstitious and don’t like working on Fridays, but Captain Molyneux puts them to work. Adam Ewing and Henry stay out of the way. Afternoon—A Swedish sailor comes to visit Adam and Henry. The Swede asks the two men if they’ll make a deal and tell him where the best “veins” are. Adam realizes he means California mining veins, then promises the Swede that he really knows nothing on the topic, but he agrees to mark some rumored gold-mining areas on a map.
The Swedish sailor’s interest in California illustrates how many men at sea were just out looking to make some easy money. The Swede’s questions are naïve, since almost no one actually got rich off the gold rush, but they show the enduring attraction of get-rich-quick myths, which appeal to human greed.
Themes
The first mate, Mr. Boerhaave, comes down and gets angry at the Swede for bothering a passenger and demands to take the map Adam Ewing gave him. Mr. Boerhaave punishes the Swede by putting him on masthead watch. Mr. Boerhaave then warns Adam that he once saw a careless passenger just like him fall overboard and get eaten by a shark.
Mr. Boerhaave behaves ruthlessly and aggressively in all parts of his life, even toward his own crew members. He is one of the first of many characters who shows that sometimes the people with the smallest amount of authority abuse their power the most.
Themes
Saturday, 16th November—Adam Ewing complains that he’s going to become the subject of gossip. The previous night, he went to sleep but woke up suddenly when he heard a voice call his name and tell him to stay quiet. A hand reaches out of the darkness to cover Adam’s mouth, and the Moriori stranger says he’s a friend of Mr. D’Arnoq. His name is Autua, and it turns out he’s the man that Adam witnessed being whipped earlier. He reveals that Mr. D’Arnoq helped him stow away in Adam’s cabin because he believed Adam to be a good man. Adam is annoyed at Mr. D’Arnoq for involving him, since if anyone gets caught, Adam will get in trouble too.
After learning about the Moriori from rumors and myths, Adam now faces a Moriori man in the flesh. Although Adam admired the Moriori from a distance, his first thought when he meets Atua is to fall back on his old prejudices about non-white races. Perhaps Mr. D’Arnoq chose Adam because he saw something in Adam and thought he could put aside his prejudices, or perhaps Adam was just the best available option.
Themes
Adam Ewing remains reluctant to help, so Autua gives Adam a knife and says if Adam won’t help him, Adam should just kill him right there so that it’s quicker and less painful. Reluctantly, Adam says he’ll help and tells Autua to put away the knife. Autua goes back under the ropes where he was hiding. But as Adam wonders how he might get out of his situation, he hears someone yell and fall onto the deck. Someone calls for Henry, the doctor. But there’s no need for a doctor—the man is dead. Adam is relieved to see it’s one of the Castilians and not someone he knows well, like his young Australian friend Rafael.
This passage illustrates the brutal nature of life at sea. First Autua references the violence that he would face if Adam decided to turn him in. But as it turns out, the real violence in the scene happens randomly, when a sailor falls off a mast to his death. The lack of commotion after the death suggests that such incidents have become an accepted part of life at sea.
Themes
Adam Ewing leaves the dead man and picks up some food for Autua on the way back to his cabin. Grateful for the food, Autua tells Adam that pain is strong, but a friend’s eyes are even stronger, pointing to his own eyes, then to Adam’s. The gesture confuses Adam. Although he’s still wary about his stowaway, Adam listens to Autua’s life story because it helps him deal with his own seasickness.
This passage parallels the passage where Autua looks at Adam while being whipped. It emphasizes how people across different cultures can find ways to communicate, even in cases where they don’t speak the same language.
Themes
As a boy on Rēkohu, Autua was eager to learn about the mysterious white people who sometimes came to the island. He had an uncle who worked for several years as a seal hunter on a ship from Boston, and he wanted to go see the foreign lands his uncle had seen. With his uncle’s help, Autua got a position on a French whaling ship and saw the world. By age 20, Autua came back to his home island, hoping to build a life, but he found that the Maori had already slain most of the Moriori. Autua becomes a slave, like the other living Moriori.
Although Autua seemed sheltered when Adam first met him, in fact, Autua has already seen the world. This passage humanizes Autua, showing him to be a well-rounded person with a family and his own goals in life—which makes his time in slavery such a cruel injustice.
Themes
Autua lived in slavery, enduring many cruelties until finally he saw an opportunity to escape. He escaped and was caught multiple times, but the Maori tolerated him because the supply of Moriori slaves had gotten so low. One night, Autua tried to trick his master’s wife into feeding her husband poison fish, then he escaped in his master’s canoe. Many months later, his master came looking for him—his dog ate the fish and died instead. His master publicly flogged Autua, which is where Adam Ewing first saw him. Autua knew at that moment that Adam would save him.
Autua’s attempt to kill his master shows extraordinary ingenuity, and he also shows remarkable persistence by continuing even after many failed attempts. Autua’s escape foreshadows other escape stories that appear in later parts of the novel. The death of the master’s dog reflects the unpredictable nature of violence and how even justified violence can lead to unintended victims.
Themes
Back in the present, the next morning, Adam Ewing tells Autua to pretend that he has just appeared and that he hasn’t spoken to Adam before. Adam goes to Captain Molyneux and says he just found a stowaway who claims to be an able seaman. Mr. Boerhaave is skeptical and wants to punish Adam for collaborating with the stowaway. Captain Molyneux decides to see the stowaway for himself. Autua plays along well, pretending he just met Adam. Captain Molyneux orders Autua to lower one of the masts as a test. While Autua is up there, the captain orders Mr. Boerhaave to aim a gun at him and fire on command. But Autua works well, and so the captain doesn’t give the order to fire. Captain Molyneux agrees to take Autua to Hawaii, if he works for no pay.
Although Captain Molyneux isn’t necessarily a morally upstanding character, he is too profit-driven to ever give up a solid worker like Autua. Mr. Boerhaave, on the other hand, is a pure sadist, and he gets more joy out of domination than profit. While Captain Molyneux ultimately helps Autua by allowing him to go to Hawaii and try to reclaim his freedom, he does so for purely selfish reasons, and if Autua hadn’t been able to lower the mast correctly, the captain would have let Boerhaave shoot him.
Themes
Wednesday, 20th November—Henry examines Adam Ewing and determines he does have a parasite. It’s a Polynesian worm that, if left untreated, would eat his brain and make his eyeballs pop out. Fortunately, there’s a cure, although the cure is itself dangerous and requires precise dosing. Henry warns Adam not to discuss his condition with the rest of the crew, since they might not understand and decide to throw him overboard. Wednesday, 30th November—Henry’s powder, which Adam inhales through his nose, makes him feel better, making him feel more alert and causing strange dreams.
Adam’s painful condition isolates him from the rest of the crew, since he can’t discuss it with any of them for fear of appearing weak. He already knows not to discuss medical conditions on the ship, given Captain Molyneux’s secrecy about his gout. The passage from November 30th reminds the reader that Henry comes from an era of pre-modern medicine when not all interventions from doctors were helpful—and some just made things worse.
Themes
Wednesday, 2nd December—It’s hot and miserable on the ship. Adam Ewing relaxes by playing chess with Henry. Recently, Autua thanked Adam for saving him and said he hoped he’d have the chance to save Adam’s own life someday. Adam hopes it never comes to that, and Henry warns Adam about the dangers of interracial friendships. At night, Adam and Henry walk around on the deck, while other sailors sing bawdy songs. Rafael, the Australian, sings an American song that his mother knew somehow and taught to him.
After all the violence in previous parts of the story, things on the Prophetess finally seem to be settling down. Still, Adam’s feverish condition suggests that not all is well. Like Adam, Henry is not a vocal racist but nevertheless sometimes reveals some very prejudiced viewpoints. Henry’s motivations for isolating Adam from the rest of the crew, first by suggesting that Adam hide his illness, then by telling him to stay away from Autua, are unclear and perhaps even suspicious.
Themes
Saturday, 7th December—Adam Ewing’s eyes are yellowy, with red rims around the outside, but Henry assures him this is the medicine doing its work. Sunday, 8th December—Adam and Henry conduct their own private Bible reading in the morning. Adam’s journal cuts off mid-sentence.
The abrupt ending of Adam’s journal is deliberately ambiguous. On the one hand, it could suggest that Adam’s story isn’t complete yet and will resume at some later time. On the other hand, however, it could imply that Adam died mid-sentence of his parasite and therefore his story ends in an incomplete and unsatisfying way—at least for the moment.
Themes
