52 pages • 1 hour read
Eva IbbotsonJourney to the River Sea
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 20-24 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary
Finn, driven by his instinct to protect Maia, abandons his journey and heads back down the river to the Carters’ residence. When he arrives, he finds the bungalow burnt to the ground, and he can’t find Maia in the huts behind it. Fearing the worst, he walks back down the river path toward his boat and finds Maia unconscious but alive under a patch of vines and bleeding from a deep gash in her leg. He instinctively rescues her, bandages her with an herbal poultice, and feeds her natural medicine. She sleeps deeply, and when she wakes, she finds herself travelling with Finn on the Arabella. Feeling restored, she explains that she escaped from the fire through her window, where she cut her leg on the smashed glass.
Happily reunited, Finn and Maia travel together toward the last known location of the Xanti tribe, using maps that Finn inherited from his father. Finn teaches Maia how to survive in the wilderness, and they gather herbal medicines to sell to villages along the way. Naively, Maia hopes that they will keep sailing together forever.
Chapter 21 Summary
Miss Minton searches for Maia, believing Professor Glastonberry’s theory that Maia survived the fire because there were no remains found in the ashes. She hears of a sighting of two children spotted on the Arabella upriver and sets out at once with Professor Glastonbury on a stolen boat that used to be the Carters’. The professor captains the boat, and they travel as quickly as possible to where Finn and Maia were last seen. Miss Minton is terrified that something awful has happened or will happen to Maia and travels without enjoying the journey for four days. Finally, on the fifth day, they are reunited with Finn and Maia.
At first, Miss Minton is determined to return to Manaus with Maia and continue to be her governess. But after a night of reflecting on Maia’s happiness at her life of freedom in the wild with Finn, and remembering her own dreams of being a naturalist, Miss Minton decides that she and the professor will follow along with Maia and Finn on their journey.
Chapter 22 Summary
At Lady Parson’s estate in England, Gwendolyn, Beatrice, and Mrs. Carter find themselves in a life of servitude. Due to Mr. Carter’s disgrace and loss of fortune, they are indebted to Lady Parson, a stingy and cruel woman, and must perform domestic duties for her in return for her decision to take them in. Gwendolyn and Beatrice are miserable until they read in the paper that Maia, Miss Minton, Finn, and Professor Glastonberry have disappeared into the jungle and are feared dead. This gives the girls a modicum of comfort because they feel that they are better off than Maia, whom they despise.
Chapter 23 Summary
Finn, Maia, Miss Minton, and Professor Glastonberry find the Xanti tribe, and it is everything for which they each had hoped. Finn studies tribal medicine, learns the tribe’s language, and meets the chief, who had known his mother. Maia studies the Xanti tribe’s traditional songs and sings her own songs to entertain them. Professor Glastonberry studies the local plant life, collects specimens, and gives rides on his steam-powered boat. Miss Minton works on an English-Xanti dictionary and is given a plant-based cure for her migraines.
Unfortunately for the happy group, Miss Minton’s corset is discovered by the Brazilian River police and sent to Colonel De Silva, who sends out a search party. The Captain who rescues them is disappointed that they are not more grateful for his help and seem reluctant to be saved.
Chapter 24 Summary
Finn, Maia, and Miss Minton board a boat back to England. When they arrive, Finn takes a train to Westwood to help Clovis, and Maia and Miss Minton take a separate train back to the boarding school. At school again, Maia is devastated that her adventure with Finn is over. At Westwood, Clovis recounts to Finn that upon his confession of his true identity, Sir Aubrey had a heart attack. Clovis’s guilt at this occurrence led him to recant his confession and reaffirm his identity as the heir to Westwood. Finn is elated that Clovis wants to remain at Westwood in his place, for this arrangement frees him from his familial duties.
At Mr. Murray’s office, Miss Minton appeals to him for custody of Maia, explaining that she loves her like a daughter and believes the Amazon to be the best home for them because it makes Maia happy. Mr. Murray is touched by her story and agrees to the plan. Finn, Maia, and Miss Minton make plans to move back to the Amazon together.
Chapters 20-24 Analysis
Finn’s instinct that Maia is in danger leads him to save her after the fire, demonstrating that The Value of Friendship can be life-changing—in this case, friendship that has the possibility of growing into something more. After Maia’s ordeal with the housefire and her near-death experience, she is rewarded with a long-awaited boat adventure with Finn. This dreamlike experience is emphasized through abundant natural and sensory imagery, and she wakes up on Finn’s boat and sees “a canopy of trees” and “a high, white sun,” smells the “heady smell of orchids”, and hears the “piercing cry” of birds (163). The strength of their bond is heightened through their reliance on each other to survive in the jungle, as she has grown to trust his knowledge of the place and its resources. In this moment, Maia has fully conquered her Fear of the Unknown and is less afraid of “travelling through unknown lands with a boy hardly older than she was herself” (166) than she was of living with the Carters. The two orphans’ pain at the loss of their parents is healed when they can face the world together, secure in each other’s company. Maia articulates this sentiment when she compares waking up on the boat with Finn to his feeling of contentment and sense of home with his father. In addition, when Miss Minton appeals to Mr. Murray to take Maia back to Brazil, she highlights Maia’s self-actualization there, realizing that in the Amazon “Maia wasn’t just happy; she was…herself” (190). Through the classic adventure trope of entering an unfamiliar environment, Maia makes important discoveries about herself that lead to her growth and fulfill both the expectations of the hero’s journey and the pattern of the bildungsroman, for only by fully embracing an immersive lifestyle in the Amazon is she finally able to come into her own.
In accordance with this idealized vision of life in the wild, the novel creates an idyllic and romanticized portrait of tribal life that acts as a foil to European culture. Maia and her friends’ time at the Xanti village is depicted as a utopian dream in which the Indigenous people help them by teaching them their traditional knowledge. This welcoming atmosphere of inclusion is emphasized when Maia pleads to study their music and the tribe acquiesces, singing “their work songs and their feasting songs because they [understand] that Maia need[s] to know about songs like Miss Minton need[s] to know about words, and Finn need[s] to know about the plants they [use] for healing” (180). Likewise, Miss Minton receives treatment for her migraines, and Finn adopts Xanti ways of thinking, viewing his life as a river whose current is carrying him along. The spirit of cultural exchange is mutual, for Professor Glastonberry gives the Xanti rides in his steamboat, Miss Minton teaches them English, and Maia entertains them by singing English songs. Thus, in these scenes, the Amazon is portrayed as a resource of both material riches and Indigenous wisdom that aids the characters in their own transformations.
The four friends’ happiness with the Xanti tribe is contrasted with their misery when they return to England. In this same vein, Miss Minton’s discarded corset signifies her break from European society and the freedom of living a life fully immersed in the natural world. As Miss Minton embraces the natural landscape of the Amazon and decides to travel with Maia and Finn to the Xanti tribe, she eschews European standards of dress and living that have kept her constrained both financially and socially. Ironically, her pursuit of freedom is the reason they are discovered and returned to the society they left. The river police who rescue them are stereotypes of cultural insensitivity, fearing that the group has “gone native” and assuming that they have been kidnapped rather than entering the jungle of their own volition. The group’s ultimate return to the Amazon is portrayed as being motivated by a pursuit of freedom from European hierarchy, as well as a reflection of the early 20th-century’s Romantic Portrayal of Wilderness Exploration.
