However, in arriving on the second island, he does seem more at peace, all he can hear is the “many different noises of the sea”. He feels he is “no longer the master,” but “an islander again and he has peace.” The “island is no longer a “world””.
Throughout the story, but particularly in section 2, we see one of the worst aspects of the Mr Cathright’s character, which could also be perceived as one of his best aspects. This is his lack of courage to make clear exactly what he believes he wants. He allows the widow and her daughter to work for him, “because they loved looking after him” not because he wants their help, they do not call him “Master” any more, and therefore they are no longer a possession. In helping them he is helping the widow by allowing her as his housekeeper, so she can keep some dignity, as few women had respect in jobs, other than in this, on the mainland, ‘controlling’ role. He again shows the same consciousness and, if you like, niceties, at the birth of his child, he marries “since” she was going to bear his child. When he leaves Flora, the plan has been there since the child was barely formed, but she knows nothing of it, he believes himself to be in a “sort of prison, in humiliation,” always “mediating escape”.
Perhaps these awful communication skills are the root of all his problems, and the root of his solution, to isolate himself so he no longer has to face them, maybe they have haunted him from an early age and this is why he has always loved islands, however much he wants to be the “only egg in the nest that is his island” he can never achieve it, because as the saying goes, “No man is an island.”
He is at peace, but still not truly happy, for many years as covered in this chapter. Slowly working, without any really ambition, on his book until he becomes obsessed with the plant life of the island, which may be seen as his nemesis, as it is in showing Flora a specific specimen, (The deeply human quality, the need for praise and recognition, which he has just lost in losing the need to publish his book.) That he succumbs to the female charm - which is the fundamental character difference between the two genders. Flora is broody, “as far as her physical self went, she had not wanted” the sex either. He believed he had reached his desired state, he no longer knew his feeling though. At the top of page 231 he questions himself, “is this happiness? I am turned into a dream. I feel nothing, or I don’t know what I feel. Yet it seems to me I am happy” he no longer “frets” on whether what he does is good or bad, all he wants is something to absorb him, he has to however not have a care. After the first time he sleeps with Flora, he is worried that he has wrecked his dream, his seemingly happy state, and this is his worry, he goes to contemplate it, at “the risk of his neck”.
The narrator in the next paragraph says, “it was the automatism of sex that had caught him again” maybe that again is why he is running from the mainland, trying to get away from the women or thing that had hurt him before.
And yet, he gives in once more to the female charm and emotional blackmail. After that he sees his island as “smirched and spoiled”, we had finally reached a supposedly “disireless level of Time” however he still had a sacred desire to want for a female.
I believe in this chapter, and indeed the entire story we see no good points of Mr Cathright’s character. If at one time he had them or not, they now are gone. We see only the bad aspects here, and many of them, all we see is a weak, afraid man, running from a previous nightmare, in everything he does he is too weak to confront the problems he causes himself, too scared, probably a very bright man at one stage, he fails to see that happiness can never be gained from running away from and avoiding your largest fears and troubles.
