Cloud Atlas

Content Warning: This section depicts slavery and discusses racism, death by suicide, and sexual abuse.

Ewing completes his interrupted entry about Rafael, noting his “luminous beauty.” The crew aboard The Prophetess spots land. They anchor in Bethlehem Bay. Ewing, Goose, and the other passengers deboard and talk to the local colonial rulers. The captain invites Goose and Ewing to present themselves as God-fearing men to the local preacher who governs the colony. They discuss setting up trade routes and missionary work. Ewing, still feeling sick, notices that the local people are all “puffing on a pipe” (501). He realizes that the white people have deliberately caused the locals to have addictions to tobacco. Since the locals have no need for money, the white people have created an incentive to get the locals to work for them. Smoking is taught to the local children in school.

Ewing attends a dinner with other rich, white people. Preacher Horrox, a missionary and the head of the colony, talks at length about his civilization theories. He believes in “Civilization’s Ladder,” which is ordained by God and ranks white people on the highest rung because of their “Aryan bravery.” Goose gently mocks the idea, suggesting that white people’s greed and remorselessness has allowed them to subjugate other races. He doesn’t, however, believe that this is immoral. The following day, The Prophetess sets sail again. Ewing finds that his room has been ransacked. Someone has tried to “force the lock” (512) on his trunk. On Goose’s advice, he doesn’t report the incident. A week later, he witnesses “various hazings and duckings” (512) carried out by the crew. Over the following days, his headaches worsen. Goose continues to treat Ewing and increases the doses. The crew catches a shark on a fishing line. Few crew members will eat shark because they’re known to eat humans, so they believe that eating sharks is “cannibalism by proxy” (514). When Ewing sleeps, he’s bothered by the cockroaches that crawl over his skin. One of the crew members tries to sell him a rat that’s trained to catch roaches. Ewing declines the offer.

Humpback whales begin following the ship. While the crew is delighted, Ewing is too sick to leave his cabin. His fingers begin to swell so badly that Goose is forced to cut off Ewing’s wedding ring. The doctor promises to hold onto the ring and have it resized in Hawaii. On Christmas Day, Ewing eats dinner with the captain. Afterward, Rafael approaches him. Ewing speaks to Rafael, who seems bothered by an unnamed sin that he has committed. Ewing assures him that God’s mercy is “infinite.” That night, Ewing spots Rafael clinging drunkenly to the ship’s mast. The other crew members carry him away. The next day, however, they discover that Rafael has “hanged himself.” Ewing worries that he should have prevented this from happening. He can’t help but feel responsible. Rafael reminded Ewing of his son.

Shocked to discover that Boerhaave sexually abused Rafael, Ewing wants to conduct an investigation, but the captain ignores him. Ewing is wracked by guilt and fears that he enabled Rafael’s death by suicide. He becomes even sicker and looks forward to reaching Hawaii, where he can receive better medical treatment. He believes that death is mere “hours away” and writes imploringly to his son, but his writing becomes illegible.

Goose reveals that he has been deliberately poisoning Ewing and plans to steal his possessions. The doctor whispers insults in Ewing’s ear, taking the key to Ewing’s trunk, now that Ewing is too sick to resist. Much to Goose’s disappointment, however, the trunk contains only “modest” contents. Ewing passes out. He’s revived by Autua, who forces him to drink seawater until he vomits. In Hawaii, Autua asks around the town for help but is refused because of the color of his skin. When Ewing eventually finds a convent, he recovers. He’s can finally sit up on the day of his 34th birthday. In his final journal entry, Ewing reflects on his adventure. He believes that the greed of men like Goose will cause the world to “consume itself” in the future. He’s indebted to Autua, so he’ll dedicate his life from now on to the abolition of slavery. However, he knows that this will cause friction between himself and his father-in-law and they’ll argue because his father-in-law will accuse him of wasting his time. However, Ewing believes that this isn’t true. Even if he’s just a drop in a limitless ocean, “any ocean is but a multitude of drops” (529).