Story of a castaway

One of the works by Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature, is "Story of a castaway", a work that moves between the novel and the journalistic report. It was published in 1970 and was presented as a report since It was published in 14 installments from the newspaper The Bogota spectator. We are facing a short novel that tells us about the days that a castaway spent in the middle of the sea after his ship sank. In this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to offer you a summary of Story of a castaway so that you know the argument of this important literary work that is so studied in schools and institutes.

Index

1. Introduction to Story of a castaway by García Márquez
2. Summary Story of a castaway: from chapter 1 to 5
3. Summary of chapter 6 to 10
4. Summary of chapter 11 at the end

Before going fully into the summary of Story of a castaway we are going to make a brief introduction to the work and to the author so that you can get to know it better. The report as such

This is one of the works by García Márquez more surprising because it was first published as a series of reports and that, later, it ended up publishing in a book entitled "Story of a castaway." This editorial decision was made due to the rise of theLatin American boom, an editorial strategy that wanted to launch the best-known authors of the moment, among which García Márquez himself stands out, but also Julio Cortázar, Borges, and so on.

It is important that you know that this story caused many political controversies since, at that time, Colombia was immersed in a military dictatorship. The political linkage of the text is due to the fact that Luis Velasco, the surviving sailor, told the author that the The reason for the wreck was because the storm displaced a contraband cargo and caused the ship to sink.

The controversial politics of this work caused the newspaper El Espectador to be closed, the survivor to be anonymous again and García Márquez was sent to Europe as a correspondent.

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Let us fully understand in this summary of Story of a castaway to talk about the first chapters of the work. Here we meet Luis Alejandro Velasco, a sailor in the Colombian Navy and the sole survivor of the shipwreck. As it were a premonition, Velasco had a bad feeling just before leaving with the ship and, this made, that the night before embarking he could not sleep.

The first day of the trip is presented in a very optimistic way: jokes among the sailors, good weather, etc. But on February 26, while they were sailing through the Gulf of Mexico, the storm appears and the ship begins to move to such an extent that many sailors get seasick during the night.

To reduce the movement of the vessel, the sailors waited for orders from the captain to drop the load. Order that never came and that caused a wave will end up throwing some sailors into the sea, including the protagonist of this story.

Luis Alejandro Velasco begins to listen to the shouts of his companions. In the end, he was able to climb on a box that floated over the sea and tries to reach his companions to save them. But due to the strong current, he couldn't get close. Then, the protagonist is left completely alone although with the hope of being rescued.

The first night that she spends in the middle of the sea, she spends her imagining the rescue. But this does not arrive and it dawns. She runs into a plane and, hopefully, thinks he's going to rescue her. But in the end it disappears over the horizon. The castaway begins to feel thirsty and anguish.

In the afternoon he has the first shark sighting but the thing stays there. The second night is harder than the previous one because he begins to feel very thirsty and hungry, something that will make him delirious and imagine the lights of a port.

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We continue with the summary of Story of a castaway to turn now to the events that take place in chapters 6 to 10. Here, our protagonist begins to feel how memory fails: As much as he wants to count the days that he has been shipwrecked, they begin to blur in his mind.

There is a moment of hope when you realize that there is a group of 7 seagulls on his raft. This meant that the coast was close and therefore he was closer to being saved. In the end, with an uncontrollable hunger, Luis will hunt one of the birds to try to eat it. But in the end he will not be able to and will end up throwing her into the sea.

Then, start thinking about everything you can eat: he eats some cardboard cards, wants to chew his shoes, eat his belt... Of course, he will also try to catch a fish but it will be a difficult task and these will cause skin wounds.

The blood from the wounds he attracts sharks They will come in droves and swim near the raft. One of the sharks, in its act of hunting, will jump on the raft and stay on top of where the protagonist is. This, frightened, will hit him with the oar on the head, grabbing a piece of meat. In the end, he will eat the meat of the fish with great disgust and, thus, he was able to quell the hunger. To quench the feeling of thirst, he takes sips of seawater.

The 7 of March he realizes that the water color becomes more greenish and that gulls abound in the sky. So it is clear to him that he is closer to the coast. At night he manages to sleep peacefully and, in addition, a seagull accompanies him during several hours of the journey.

Constant exposure to the sun and salt begin to take their toll on his body. He has burns and skin irritation. But the protagonist is in a state of indifference and delirium.

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We finish this summary of Story of a castaway talking about the last chapters. At four in the morning, Luis Alejandro begins to spot coconut trees but he is not able to clearly distinguish where the land is. He doesn't have oars because he loses them when he faces sharks and he doesn't have strength either. But he decides to jump into the water and start swimming, with the medal of the Virgin between his teeth.

He finally he reaches the shore and, tired, he collapses on the sand. He is approached by a man and then discovers that, despite his imaginations, he has not moved from his country: Colombia. They take him to the doctor and contact the police. The protagonist wants to tell his story but the locals want him to heal.

They end up taking it on plane to Cartagena and at the hospital they put a custodial guard on him to make sure he doesn't talk to anyone. The story will be told thanks to a reporter who, disguised as a doctor, was able to learn the tragic and surprising story that he had lived.

This report made Luis Alejandro become a public figure. He received an award from the president and participated in media interviews. He became a hero.

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