Abstract :
Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins tells the archetypal story of the
young, virgin, orphan girl who is vulnerable to either debauchery or rescue. That such a
girl must succumb to either one or the other is a necessary element of the archetype. In
O’Dell’s work—one intended, after all, for children—the heroine is rescued by a
paternalistic figure and re-inscribed into the patriarchal world. Yet, in the hands of
young readers, Island—part fairytale, part rescue narrative, part feminist parable—
becomes a story of independence and survival, despite the heroine’s ‘‘rescue’’ at
the end.
