Is Edward Prendick imagining everything that he sees or is it real?  When it comes to the story there is a combination of realistic details and just plain weird details. The way Prendick describe everything, it almost seems believable. “I looked steadily at them, and the impression did not pass, though I failed to see what had occasioned it. They seemed to me then to be brown men, but their limbs were oddly swathed in some thin dirty white stuff down even to the fingers and feet…I found afterwards that really none were taller than myself, but their bodies were abnormally long and the thigh-part of the leg short and curiously twisted… the face of the man whose eyes were luminous in the dark.” (24) just by this small section of the story we now start to get a better picture/idea on how the people of the island look like. And by the looks of it they don’t seem normal. Their legs are oddly shaped, their face and arms. We know that Edward has been stranded in a Didley for a long time which we can imagine that his mind might be making him sees things that are not there. Although the reader might think that, the way that Edward started to describe how the island looked like and the Islanders it makes it seem like its real. And that he is not making this up in his head. All the wired details start with how he describes how the islanders look like and how strange Montgomery and his companion is.
3 thoughts on “Clue “The Evil Looking Boatmen””
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I disagree that all the weird details stated with how he described the islanders and how strange Montgomery and his companion were. Instead, I believe that it started when Prendick was first hearing the noises from the boat and how they were bringing all the exotic animals to the island that Montgomery is from. I did not sense a doubt that any of this was real or not, only at one point when he was out of water and rations in the beginning of the story, since the lack of rations could have likely been the cause of him hallucinating.
I agree with what margarita said because the way Edward decides the people on the island it felt that they look really weird and creepy but it kind of felt it was too good to be true because Edward has been through a lot. He was stranded for a while, then save but then the drunk captain out of know way just wanted to get rid of him and then to be back on the same boat again that he was stranded on to then go to on a island that he doesn’t know about. To me felt like he was going crazy and you just don’t know what he was saying about how he saw the people on the island was true or not.
I agree, there are details and information carefully placed in the story that makes readers think that whatever the author is saying is real and the author, Wells, does this so that the story can be a little more realistic and readers can decide whether these events happened or not. There are also enough details to raise questions on whether these events or creature like beings are real or not. You said “Edward has been stranded in the dingey for a long time which he can imagine seeing things…” that was the case because he was already well rested and recovered before he was thrown off the ship by the captain and shortly after Montgomery felt pity for him and led him to the island. So he couldn’t have been hallucinating or his mind playing tricks making him see these oddly beings. The details, though, in which Wells explained the way these beings are makes readers themselves questions whether these people are real or not.