Cloud Atlas

by

David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Adam Ewing’s journal picks up mid-sentence where it left off in Chapter 1. The ship he’s on, The Prophetess, approaches land for the first time in many weeks, arriving at a Polynesian island called Raiatea. Captain Molyneux invites Henry Goose and Adam to come ashore to a settlement called Nazareth, in Bethlehem Bay. Adam is suspicious of the offer but agrees. First mate, Boerhaave, accompanies them. The captain leads them ashore to a church run by a British missionary, Preacher Horrox. He uses Henry and Adam’s presence to suggest that he runs a respectable ship and never drinks. And so, the captain manages to trick Preacher Horrox and win his favor.
The fact that Adam’s journal picks up mid-sentence helps contribute to the fiction that it is a real journal that Robert just happened to find in Ayrs’s library somewhere. The names Nazareth and Bethlehem Bay continue the theme of Christian imagery. Although Adam claimed in the first chapter to be a proponent of Christian missionaries to foreign countries, this seems to be one of Adams’s first times seeing a missionary in person.
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Preacher Horrox and his wife explain that their mission has been so successful on the island because a smallpox plague caused the local Polynesian people to look for spiritual comfort. Captain Molyneux asks how the preacher manages to fund his mission. Preacher Horrox replies that enslaved Black people work on a local plantation, which raises enough to help pay for everything. Captain Molyneux suggests that the preacher’s business might be even more profitable if he could sell his goods to a closer market, perhaps San Francisco, which is just three weeks away by sea and has grown in size considerably since the gold rush. Henry’s reputation as a doctor causes some of the locals to seek him out. Adam Ewing leaves the meeting and goes out on his own to explore the island.
Although Preacher Horrox uses euphemistic language, it seems that he exploited the disease and people’s fear of the islands in order to grab influence (and money) for himself. Preacher Horrox shows no qualms about using slave labor, and Captain Molyneux similarly shows no hesitation to transport goods produced through slave labor. The behavior of all these men shows how the pursuit of a profit can lead people to put aside morality and find ways to justify their own selfish actions.
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Monday, 9th DecemberAdam Ewing continues his story from the previous day. He talks to a man he meets in town named Mr. Wagstaff. Wagstaff tells him that white men provide the local “savages” with schools, medicine, and jobs, yet they remain ungrateful. Wagstaff takes Adam to meet his wife, who is resentful that she is stuck on the island but Adam will leave soon. Adam gets embarrassed about starting an argument and leaves. Wagstaff shows Adam around more of the island.
Adam’s apparent dislike of Mr. Wagstaff, and Adam’s skepticism toward Preacher Horrox, suggest that Adam’s experiences on his voyage have inspired him to question some of his racist views.
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That night, Adam Ewing has dinner next to a bitter old widow at Preacher Horrox’s house. Horrox has agreed to a new business venture with Captain Molyneux. At dinner, Horrox gives a speech about “Civilization’s Ladder,” which suggests that there is a natural hierarchy of the races. Horrox theorizes that in the current century, the superior races will rise up against the weaker ones. Henry protests that all of civilization operates according to an even simpler law: the strong eat the weak. He suggests that white men only rule by muskets, not by any divine right. Horrox argues instead that the musket is merely proof of the white man’s divine right, but Henry sees it as a symbol of greed.
Preacher Horrox and Henry Goose hold white supremacist views, but they arrive at those views for different reasons. Preacher Horrox believes that the races are genetically different and that white men are scientifically the best—which conveniently enough provides an excuse for his use of slave labor. Henry’s idea that the strong always triumph over the weak seems more modern in some ways by suggesting that white people aren’t genetically superior—they just have muskets. Still, Henry’s brutal worldview seems to foreshadow Social Darwinism (which applies Darwin’s concept of biological natural selection to sociology and economics), highlighting how Henry is racist in a different way.
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That night, Henry complains to Adam Ewing that all his patients that day were women who exaggerated minor complaints and who fear their husbands are have sex with Polynesian women. The next afternoon, the Prophetess pulls away from the island. Adam muses about what he saw, thinking that Preacher Horrox’s attempts to help Polynesian people “ascend” Civilization’s Ladder appear noble on the surface, but Adam can’t endorse them the way he might’ve when he was younger.
Horrox’s use of the word “ascend” deliberately recalls the language used in Sonmi’s story about fabricants who become sentient. But while the new knowledge gained through ascension is a positive thing in Sonmi’s world, Horrox twists it to a negative, using ascension as an excuse to force his own ideas about civilization onto the Polynesian people.
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Monday, 16th December—The Prophetess crosses the Equator, and all the experienced crew members haze the new members who haven’t crossed the Equator before. Boerhaave uses this excuse to treat the newest crew members cruelly.
Boerhaave once again shows a tendency to take things to extremes, using existing sailing traditions as an excuse to express his own sadism.
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Wednesday, 18th DecemberAdam Ewing’s headaches get worse, so Henry gives him larger doses of vermicide. The crew members manage to catch a shark and butcher it, although some sailors refuse to eat shark, believing it’s like cannibalism to eat a maneater. Friday, 20th December—Cockroaches bother Adam as he sleeps. One sailor offers to sell him a “roach rat” for a dollar. Sunday, 22nd December—Adam is hot and his skin blisters. He’s been spending a lot of time in his cabin, but he comes up to the deck when several crewmembers point out a pod of migrating humpback whales.
Adam’s health seems to be deteriorating, perhaps resembling Robert Frobisher’s own descent into delusion in his final letters. Meanwhile, the other sailors show little sympathy for him, with one of them even trying to profit off the situation by selling Adam a rat to eat the roaches in his room. This behavior once again shows how selfishness and greed can cause people to neglect the needs and suffering of others.
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Christmas EveAdam Ewing’s finger swells so big that Henry has to cut off his wedding ring. Henry knows a goldsmith in Hawaii who can repair the ring later. Christmas Day—Although the dinner is better than usual, Adam has trouble digesting it. Later that evening, Adam’s parasite causes painful headaches and vermicide doesn’t help the symptoms as much as it used to. Only a few crew members are still sober, including Autua. Rafael has passed out drunk. Boerhaave picks up the unconscious Rafael, slaps his butt, and carries him off.
The events in Adam’s journal take place  around the same time of year when, many years later, Timothy Cavendish plots his escape from Aurora House. Adam himself seems like he needs to escape, but the problem is that he’s trapped inside his own body. It is obvious in this passage that Boerhaave is doing something sexual with the unconscious Rafael, potentially even raping him, but Adam seems totally oblivious to this.
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Boxing DayRafael hangs himself from the mainmast. Adam Ewing is shocked and doesn’t understand why. Henry repeats a rumor he heard that Boerhaave raped Rafael, not just on Christmas but frequently. Friday, 27th December—Adam confronts Captain Molyneux, suggesting that Boerhaave and others sexually abused Rafael and he took his own life to escape it. The captain curses him and says he makes all the decisions on the ship, not Adam. Later, Adam wonders if anything he did made Rafael feel like he had “permission” to die by suicide.
The previous journal entry strongly hinted that Boerhaave was sexually abusing Rafael, and this passage reveals that, in fact, the abuse goes beyond one drunken night. Adam confronts the guilt that many people feel in the wake of a death, particularly a suicide, and Adam’s delirious mental state contributes to the intensity of his guilt.
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Saturday, 28th DecemberAdam Ewing has nightmares about Rafael killing himself. Sunday, 29th December—Adam feels very sick. Monday, 30th December—Adam believes that his parasite’s poison sacs have burst and that he will die in hours, still two days away from Hawaii. Adam starts writing an unfinished sentence to his son Jackson Ewing about what to do if anything happens to him.
These short journal entries, including one that ends mid-sentence, seem to suggest that Adam is nearing the end of his life. Adam’s incomplete message to his son suggests that Adam himself has prepared for the possibility of dying.
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Sunday, 12th January—By New Year’s, Adam Ewing’s condition becomes so severe that he can’t hide his condition from Captain Molyneux anymore. Henry tells the captain and Boerhaave that Adam’s parasite is contagious, so they’ll stay away. Adam spends much of his time in a daze. He overhears Henry telling someone that the worst of Adam’s condition is over and that he’s regaining his color. Autua tries to see Adam to return Adam’s favor and save Adam’s life, but Henry invents lies to keep Autua away, telling him that Adam regrets ever saving Autua’s life.
While Henry seems at first to be helping Adam by giving him privacy, the conversation that Adam overhears between Autua and Henry is a turning point that helps Adam realize that Henry’s behavior is unusual. Suddenly, some of Henry’s actions look suspicious in hindsight, like how he took Adam’s wedding ring with the promise of fixing it in Hawaii. Autua helps Adam realize the situation he’s in, meaning if Adam hadn’t saved Autua, Adam might have died himself.
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Henry’s lies surprise Adam Ewing. He suddenly gets the idea that Henry might be poisoning him instead of curing him. He gets up and tries to escape but is too weak. Henry sees him and realizes that Adam has figured everything out, so he drops the ruse. He admits that he’s killing Adam for his money—it’s as simple as that. As a doctor, Henry sees humans as diseased pieces of meat, even his friends, and he lives by his rule of survival that the strong eat the weak. He robs Adam’s trunk and is disappointed at how little it contains.
While Henry has hinted at his brutal worldview before, it’s still shocking that he would betray Adam over an inconsequential sum of money. Henry represents the extremes that people will go to to satisfy their greed. .
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The next thing Adam Ewing remembers is drowning in salt water. He tries to swim but finds that he’s actually on deck, vomiting and feverish. Autua has been making him drink salt water so that he’ll vomit out the poison. Boerhaave comes over and tries to stop Autua, but Autua just throws the mate overboard. The rest of the crew stays back. Autua carries a weak Adam down a gangplank and off the ship onto what seems to be Honolulu, Hawaii. Autua carries Adam to some nuns at a Catholic mission.
Just as Adam helped save Autua’s life, Autua helps save Adam’s. This karmic repaying of life debts recalls the situation with Lester Rey, Luisa Rey, and Joe Napier, where Lester saves Napier’s life, then Napier returns the favor by saving Luisa’s life. When the Prophetess arrives in Honolulu, Autua finally gains his freedom, and he immediately makes use of it by tossing Boerhaave overboard and carrying Adam ashore to safety, underscoring the loyal, unselfish nature of Autua’s character.
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Three days later, Adam Ewing is strong enough to sit up. He thanks Autua, who saved his life, making the two men equal. Later, Adam receives some of his things—Captain Molyneux sent them. Henry apparently escaped and fled somewhere in Honolulu. It’s Adam’s 34th birthday.
Adam wraps up some of the remaining loose ends in his story by describing what happened to people like Henry and Captain Molyneux. While Adam was already starting to doubt his old views about race, Autua’s heroic rescue of Adam represents a turning point in Adam’s changing ideas about race. 
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Monday, 13th January—It’s a pleasant afternoon, and Adam Ewing is in the courtyard of the mission on a pleasant afternoon. There’s an orphanage next to the convent, and some of the children there are as old as Rafael, which brings up painful memories for Adam. At night recently, Adam has been getting philosophical, wondering what causes humans to do what they do. He wonders if human nature has doomed humanity to eventual destruction. He decides it’s best to believe that a more peaceful world is possible, for Jackson’s sake. He feels that he must battle against the violent parts of human nature, even if it seems foolish to do so. A final footnote from Jackson notes that this is the place in his father’s journal where the handwriting becomes illegible.
The ending of Adam’s journal reiterates many of the themes that show up throughout the novel. By dedicating himself to fighting injustice, Adam aligns himself with the protagonists of the other Cloud Atlas stories. The final footnote from Jackson adds one last mystery to the story—why did Adam’s journal end so abruptly, and what did he attempt to write in his illegible handwriting? The open-ended conclusion to Adam’s journal (and so to the novel as a whole) suggests that perhaps the fight against humanity’s dark side that Adam references is part of an ongoing struggle.
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