Information AboutDesert Island |
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A desert island is simply any uninhabited Island . (Note that "desert" is a reference to the island's deserted status, not any claim that it necessarily has arid Desert weather.) Such islands are commonly invoked in Metaphor , Literature , and the popular imagination. In the popular conception, such islands are often located in the Pacific , Tropical , uninhabited and usually uncharted. They are remote locales that offer escape and force people marooned or stranded as Castaway s to become self-sufficient and essentially create a new society. This society can either be Utopian , based on an ingenious re-creation of society's comforts (such as can be seen in the novel '' Swiss Family Robinson '' and, in a humorous form, in the TV series '' Gilligan's Island '') or a regression into savagery (a theme of William Golding 's '' Lord Of The Flies '' and Alex Garland 's '' The Beach ''). Daniel Defoe 's novel '' Robinson Crusoe '' is the quintessential story of this kind. Since Defoe usually capitalized on current news events, it is likely that his real-life inspiration for Crusoe was a Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk , who was rescued in 1709 by the Woodes Rogers ' expedition after four years on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernández off the Chilean Coast . The theme of being stranded on a desert island has inspired films, such as '' Cast Away '', and TV series, like '' Lost ''. It is also the driving force behind Reality Shows like '' Survivor ''. ''Lost'' has characters named John Locke and Danielle Rousseau, named after John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau , respectively, both of whom were social contract philosophers who dealt with the relationship between nature and civilization. Locke believed that, in the state of nature, all men had equal right to punish transgressors; to ensure fair judgment for all, governments were formed to better administrate the laws. Rousseau, on the other hand, argued that man was born weak and ignorant, but virtuous nonetheless. Only after man develops society does he become wicked. As symbols of isolation, desert islands have inspired ponderings such as "If I ever went to a deserted island, the five things I would bring with me would be..." This is a parlor game that was expanded upon in the BBC Radio 4 program '' Desert Island Discs ''. ISLOMANIA Possessing desert or tropical islands is the dream of many, and is often realized by the very rich. The term Islomania is used to describe a craze for islands. In early 2005 , Mago Island in Fiji was purchased by actor/director Mel Gibson . Descendants of original native inhabitants of Mago, who were displaced in the 1860s, have protested Mel Gibson's purchase of Mago from Japan's Tokyu corporation for $15 million. 's son Teihotu. In his deed, Brando, who died in 2004 , granted his friend Michael Jackson lifelong use of 2000 m2 (a half-acre) on the islet of Onetahi, in the west of Tetiaroa. OTHER CHARACTERISTICS
HISTORICAL CASTAWAYS Real-life castaways were reduced to an extremely primitive condition, or lost the powers of speech, in a space of a few years. One report describes a Frenchman who, after two years of solitude on Mauritius , tore his clothing to pieces in a fit of madness brought on by a diet of nothing but raw Turtle s. Another story has to do with a Dutch seaman who was left alone on the island of Saint Helena as punishment. He fell into such despair that he disinterred the body of a buried comrade and set out to sea in the coffin. Another castaway, the Spaniard Pedro Serrano , was rescued after seven years of solitude. NOTES |
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