Resumen
Resumen de La marea menguante
Para quién es
For readers who love adventure with a conscience, moral conflict and character study, and anyone curious about Stevenson's darker side or the colonial Pacific.
De qué trata este libro
The Ebb-Tide is a short novel of the South Seas, written by Robert Louis Stevenson with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne and published in 1894, the year Stevenson died. By then Stevenson was living in Samoa. He had seen the islands, their traders, their drifters and their ships at close range. This story is the darkest result. It has none of the sunny confidence of his earlier sea tales. It follows three white men who have washed up at the edge of Tahiti with nothing left, and it asks what such men will do when a chance finally comes.
You get a fast plot and a hard moral test in one slim book. There is a ship, a stolen cargo, a lonely island and a stranger who is not what he seems. You also get three portraits of failure, each different, each painfully believable. The book moves quickly, but what stays with you is the question under the action. How far will a man go to escape his own ruin? The first answer lies on the waterfront at Papeete, where the three men are waiting for something to happen.
En este resumen
- 1Three failed men wait on the beachFree
- 2A ship with a dead crew offers a chance
- 3The cargo changes everything
- 4An island of pearls and a strange host
- 5What the story says about ruin and conscience
- 6How two writers made a tense, bleak tale
Idea clave 1 de 6
Three failed men wait on the beach
The story opens in Papeete, the port of Tahiti, among the men known as beachcombers. These are white drifters who have lost their jobs, their money and often their self respect. They sleep in a broken old prison building and live on scraps, favours and whatever the tide brings. Stevenson pictures a tropical town that looks beautiful but offers these men nothing at all.
Three of them stand at the centre. Robert Herrick is an educated Englishman, a man of university and good manners, who has never managed to make anything of his gifts. He is gentle and troubled, and he knows exactly how far he has fallen. Captain Davis is an American sailor who once held command of a ship and lost it through drink. He is a big, blunt man, and his pride still hurts him.
The third is Huish, a Cockney clerk who has drifted out to the Pacific. He is small, mean, quick and spiteful, and he has no illusions about himself or anybody else. He is the one who will say aloud what the others hide. The three have little in common except hunger and bad luck, and each regards the others with contempt.
The opening pages set the tone for everything after. Nobody here is a hero, and Stevenson does not ask you to admire them. He asks you to watch them. When the chance of escape arrives, you already know how weak each man is, and you wonder what weakness will win.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Robert Herrick
- An educated English drifter in Tahiti, he shares Davis and Huish's poverty but feels ashamed of his failures.
- Captain Davis
- An American sailor disgraced through drink, he joins Herrick and Huish in seeking a way out of poverty.
- Huish
- A cunning Cockney clerk turned drifter, he shares Herrick and Davis's circumstances but has fewer scruples.
- Attwater
- The cultured, deeply religious master of a remote pearl island, he becomes host to Herrick, Davis and Huish.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 49,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 3 h 15 min
- Listening time5 h 25 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 10 other languages
Questions about La marea menguante
What is The Ebb-Tide about?
It tells of three down-and-out white men in Tahiti who get the chance to sail a schooner to Sydney, then choose a darker path. The book is a story of temptation, guilt and the cost of moral weakness.
Who wrote The Ebb-Tide?
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. It was published in 1894, the year Stevenson died in Samoa, where he had lived for several years and gathered much of his knowledge of Pacific life.
Who is Attwater in The Ebb-Tide?
Attwater is the white master of a remote pearl island. He is educated, devout and commanding, and his conversations with the visitors, especially Herrick, form the book's central moral contest.
What does the title The Ebb-Tide mean?
An ebb-tide is the outgoing tide that leaves ships and people stranded. It suits a story about men whose fortunes have drained away and who are left stuck at the lowest point of their lives.
Is The Ebb-Tide worth reading and is it hard to read?
It is short, fast and not hard to follow. It is darker than most of Stevenson's adventure tales, so it suits readers who like moral conflict and character study as much as action.