What will happen to you today if, like Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels, you too are marooned alone for one year on an island inhabited only by the Stone Age humans?
The critically acclaimed Hollywood movie 'The Castaway' deals with similar situation (minus the company of any living creature) where the protagonist is marooned on a deserted island for four years. In this superfast age of constant travels worldwide and amidst an entirely materialistic living, the situation may arise anytime in our life. I believe that in the materialistic humdrum of the post-modern and ultra-modern time we ourselves have been trapped in isolation away from the decent, civilized demeanour. Hence the question. Just imagine the situation and try to find out the solution - 'what if we too become a castaway and marooned like Gulliver (on an island) but without any contacts with the civilized world outside?'
Keywords: Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, island, marooned, the castaway, uncivilized world, post-modern society, human isolation, stone age society
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There are still some people who would find your scenario a most idyllic situation--to be left alone on a deserted island without any contact with the outside, modern world. If, indeed, a man was to be a castaway for only one year (with the possibility or certainty of being rescued after that time), it could become a great learning experience, as it was for Gulliver. If the setting was more similar to Cast Away, with limited resources aside from what could be found in the sea, survival would be a much greater challenge. A more-perfect existence would be that of the shipwrecked survivors of Swiss Family Robinson, who managed to make their island refuge a true paradise; when it came time to be rescued, they realized that they had already found a perfect home. In any of the three cases, survival would be the primary focus, battling the elements and making do with the natural resources that were available. The time spent there would certainly provide plenty of time for reflection, and a man might be able to better recognize his true place on the planet while devoid of the technological distractions of the modern world. Above all, the time spent being castawayed would allow a man to make certain decisions about how he will live out the rest of his life once he is returned to civilization.
Great! Survival remains the primary focus of any living creature on the planet including the humans. He will survive anyway. Afterall, naturally, he is the highest evolved form of the animals. The rest comes later. The idea of 'battling the elements and making do with the natural resources that were available' and prove that humans are superior and cannot be defeated even by a powerful creature like shark, resulted in another literary masterpiece - 'The Old Man and the Sea" by Earnest Hemmingway. But the question remains - Would he survive like a genuine human, like an ape or like a Stone Age man when he returns to civilization or out of his practical experience, would he become a genuine human being full of love, compassion and care for the world? Would the yearly isolation make that man a good man or would he continue to live like he used to - materialistic, avaricious, moneyminded, and isolated from the problems of his bretheren - before his isolation?
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