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Adam Ewing is the protagonist of “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing,” a book that Robert Frobisher later finds. Adam’s journal makes up the first and last chapters of Cloud Atlas. He is a white American with family back in San Francisco (including a son, Jackson), and he travels in the Pacific for his job as a notary. While in the Chatham Islands waiting on repairs to the ship he’s traveling on (The Prophetess), Adam meets a strange man named Dr. Henry Goose, who seems like a friend but who ultimately tries to poison Adam to steal his money. Despite initially holding racist beliefs, Adam nevertheless helps an indigenous Moriori man named Autua travel to Hawaii as a stowaway on the Prophetess. Adam faces even more challenges to his beliefs when he sees slavery on a remote island at the Christian mission of Preacher Horrox. Later, when Autua saves Adam’s life by rescuing him from Henry’s poisoning, Adam finally begins to put aside his white supremacist beliefs. Adam’s journal ends with him promising to fight for a better world for his son, Jackson, and so Adam’s life suggests the possibility that people can change.
Adam Ewing Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Adam Ewing or refer to Adam Ewing. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints. Through rotting kelp, sea cocoa-nuts & bamboo, the tracks led me to their maker, a White man, his trowzers & Pea-jacket rolled up, sporting a kempt beard & an outsized Beaver, shoveling & sifting the cindery sand with a teaspoon so intently that he noticed me only after I had hailed him from ten yards away. Thus it was, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Henry Goose, surgeon to the London nobility.
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He jabbed at his eyes & jabbed at mine, as if that single gesture were ample explanation.
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Chapter 2
Quotes
A telegram, Sixsmith? You ass.
Don’t send any more, I beg you—telegrams attract attention!
Chapter 3
Quotes
Robert Frobisher mentions a comet-shaped birthmark between his shoulder blade and collarbone.
I just don’t believe in this crap. I just don’t believe it. I don’t.
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Chapter 5
Quotes
Catechism Three teaches that for servers to keep anything denies Papa Song’s love for us and cheats His Investment. I wondered, did Yoona~939 still observe any Catechism? But misgivings, though grave, were soon lost in the treasures Yoona showed me there: a box of unpaired earrings, beads, tiaras. The xquisite sensation of dressing in pureblood clothes overcame my fear of being discovered. Greatest of all, however, was a book, a picture book.
Chapter 6
Quotes
List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.
Zachry my old pa was a wyrd buggah, I won’t naysay it now he’s died. Oh, most o’ Pa’s yarnin’s was jus’ musey duck fartin’ an’ in his loonsome old age he even b’liefed Meronym the Prescient was his presh b’loved Sonmi, yay, he ’sisted it, he said he knowed it all by birthmarks an’ comets’n’all.
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Chapter 11
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“The weak are meat the strong do eat.”
Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?
Get the entire Cloud Atlas LitChart as a printable PDF.
Adam Ewing Quotes in Cloud Atlas
The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Adam Ewing or refer to Adam Ewing. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints. Through rotting kelp, sea cocoa-nuts & bamboo, the tracks led me to their maker, a White man, his trowzers & Pea-jacket rolled up, sporting a kempt beard & an outsized Beaver, shoveling & sifting the cindery sand with a teaspoon so intently that he noticed me only after I had hailed him from ten yards away. Thus it was, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Henry Goose, surgeon to the London nobility.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
He jabbed at his eyes & jabbed at mine, as if that single gesture were ample explanation.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2
Quotes
A telegram, Sixsmith? You ass.
Don’t send any more, I beg you—telegrams attract attention!
Chapter 3
Quotes
Robert Frobisher mentions a comet-shaped birthmark between his shoulder blade and collarbone.
I just don’t believe in this crap. I just don’t believe it. I don’t.
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Chapter 5
Quotes
Catechism Three teaches that for servers to keep anything denies Papa Song’s love for us and cheats His Investment. I wondered, did Yoona~939 still observe any Catechism? But misgivings, though grave, were soon lost in the treasures Yoona showed me there: a box of unpaired earrings, beads, tiaras. The xquisite sensation of dressing in pureblood clothes overcame my fear of being discovered. Greatest of all, however, was a book, a picture book.
Chapter 6
Quotes
List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.
Zachry my old pa was a wyrd buggah, I won’t naysay it now he’s died. Oh, most o’ Pa’s yarnin’s was jus’ musey duck fartin’ an’ in his loonsome old age he even b’liefed Meronym the Prescient was his presh b’loved Sonmi, yay, he ’sisted it, he said he knowed it all by birthmarks an’ comets’n’all.
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Chapter 11
Quotes
“The weak are meat the strong do eat.”
Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?
