47 pages • 1 hour read
Paul TherouxThe Mosquito Coast
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1981A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Fat Boy
Fat Boy, for Charlie in particular, represents his father’s mind. It represents what Allie can achieve because of the unique nature of his intelligence. However, the inner, mechanical workings of Fat Boy, labyrinthine as they are, remind Charlie of his father’s brain because they are tangled and convoluted. Charlie once believed that his father’s thought processes were so superior to his own that he couldn’t possibly comprehend his genius, but he comes to see his father as flawed and, like Fat Boy, unpredictable and combustible.
Scavengers
Allie uses the term “scavengers” in a consistently disparaging way throughout the novel, and his inability to recognize his personification of the actions and behaviors defined by the term are evidence of his egotism and disconnect from reality. From the beginning of the novel, the Foxes are scavengers, picking garbage from the landfill, sourcing discarded materials from the remnants of Weerwilly’s Jeronimo, and relying upon objects washed up by the tides in the lagoon. Allie is incapable of recognizing when he exhibits the same traits he claims to despise in others. Allie’s dislike of the vultures, which features more heavily in the latter sections of the novel, is in part due to their scavenging approach to feeding. As carrion birds, they feed only on the dead or dying, and when these vultures finally silence the increasingly weakening Allie, it is notable that they scavenge from him his tongue, the instrument of his vitriol.
The Mosquito Coast
The Mosquito Coast of Honduras is the setting for most of the novel. La Ceiba, Jeronimo, Brewer’s Lagoon, and the Spellgood mission are all situated on the coast or along coastal rivers flowing out to the sea. Allie sees the coast as an overpopulated place, and as the novel progresses, he is consistently resistant to traveling downriver, wanting to remain as autonomous and removed from society as he is able. He vehemently declines to travel to the coast, even though it represents the assistance the family desperately needs. Allie is devastated when he realizes that his family has taken him to the coast after he is shot, and it is directly on the coast, at the beach, where he finally dies.
