The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux

First published: 1981

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Dystopian and psychological realism

Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century

Locale: Hatfield, Massachusetts; Mosquito coast, Honduras

Principal characters

• Allie “Father” Fox, an inventor and farm handyman
• Mrs. Fox, his wife
• Charlie and Jerry, their sons
• Clover and April, their twin daughters
• Tiny Polski, an asparagus farmer, Allie’s employer
• Mr. Haddy, a Honduran who becomes the family’s helper
• The Reverend Spellgood, a missionary to Honduras
• Emily Spellgood, his daughter

The Story:

Allie “Father” Fox is an angry man, living in a valley in western Massachusetts with his wife and four children and working on Tiny Polski’s asparagus farm while continuing to invent machines. Earlier, the family had lived in Maine, where Father had tried organic farming and creating solar energy, both of which were failures. He had considered the move to Massachusetts a chance to start over.

Father and his oldest son, Charlie, visit Polski with one of Father’s new inventions, a self-contained box that makes ice out of fire and ammonia. Polski makes fun of the invention. Father, already fed up with American culture because of its pornography, religion, materialism, drugs, and waste, plans to move—unknown to the rest of the family. He takes the family shopping, railing at the flimsiness of the merchandise and its prices. Charlie is full of foreboding, which is intensified when he later visits Polski, who warns him that Father is the most obnoxious man he has ever met.

The family sets sail from Baltimore on the ship Unicorn. Aboard, they meet the family of the Reverend Spellgood, whom Father baits and toys with. Charlie learns from Emily Spellgood, the reverend’s daughter, that the Unicorn is headed for the coast of Honduras. Reverend Spellgood has a missionary church in Guampu, upriver from the Mosquito coast. The Foxes land on the coast at La Cieba, where Father buys the deed to a remote town, Jeronimo, from a drunk he meets. He hires Mr. Haddy’s motor launch to ferry them upriver to Jeronimo, which turns out to be a muddy area in the forest with one rusty, tin-roofed shack.

The locals, the Zambus, help Mr. Haddy unload his launch while the Foxes are greeted with gifts of food by the Maywit family, also consisting of two parents and four children, who inhabit the shack. Father immediately visualizes the town he will create here and hires all the men present, including Mr. Maywit, to help him build it. Soon, with Mother working alongside the men, the land is cleared.

Mr. Haddy returns from the coast with a missionary whom Father soon forces to leave. Over the next few weeks, they build a house, plant crops, pave paths, and build a pump wheel on the river that supplies water. Father then has the men build a huge plant of sorts filled with strange plumbing—a tall replica of the ice-making machine that Polski had spurned. Charlie names the machine Fat Boy.

When Fat Boy is finally operational, Father decides to bring ice up the river to the most primitive town he can find, to “enlighten” the indigenous people of the village. He wraps a block of ice in banana leaves and sets off with Charlie, Mr. Haddy, and a few Zambus to Seville, the last town up the river. After getting lost and then slogging through swampland, they come upon the empty village. The villagers creep out of the woods, and Father finally shows the leader the ice. Father soon discovers that the leader knows the word “hice” and becomes infuriated. He also finds out that the villagers are Christians as well. He stomps away from the group leaving only his angry smell behind.

After Jeronimo becomes a successful settlement with comfortable living quarters and successful crops, Father builds a huge block of ice and straps it to a sled. He brings Charlie and his younger brother, Jerry, along with the sled pulled by Zambus, and sets out to cross the mountains to a village more primitive than Seville. By the time they arrive at the remote Indian village, the block of ice has melted to a sliver. The Indians are more impressed with Father’s missing finger than with the ice, but Father refuses to leave the village until his party is fed. They are finally fed by three ragged white men, assumed to be slaves. Father brags to them of his settlement in Jeronimo.

The party returns to Jeronimo and finds that the Maywits have deserted and gone upriver with a missionary. Days later, the three white men, whom Father had assumed to be slaves of the Indians, show up in Jeronimo, carrying pistols and a rifle. When it becomes apparent the men will not leave, Father offers the three men Fat Boy to sleep in. While the men are asleep, Charlie is told by his father to seal the plant. Father then fires up the boiler. A horrible scene ensues, in which the men struggle and cry as they die in the plant. Fat Boy then explodes and destroys all of Jeronimo, and Mr. Haddy’s boat as well.

Father breaks down and cries, but he soon recovers and leads the family on foot over a mountain ridge, where they discover a creek. They meet a Miskito Indian with a launch who lets Father take the launch downstream, laden with the family and Mr. Haddy. While they are poling on the Rio Sico, Father announces that the United States has been blown up and no longer exists. The party reaches Laguna Miskita, where the family builds another settlement. The rains soon come, however, and they are flooded out. Their hut is washed away, but they remain in it and head upstream.

The group travels for days until they reach Guampu, near the missionary settlement of the Reverend Spellgood. Charlie and Jerry swim ashore and convince Emily Spellgood, the reverend’s daughter, to give them the key to her father’s jeep. They swim back to the boat and find Father gone. They try to convince their mother to leave with them. Suddenly the mission and all its buildings explode. As they watch the flames, Father returns to the boat and tries to escape upriver. Charlie pulls Father’s feet tight in the anchor chain, while mother and the children climb into the dugout. The people onshore are shooting at the boat. Mother and the children topple Father over into the dugout and reach the opposite shore. They dump Father into the jeep and climb in after him, as Mother drives toward the coast, where they make camp on the beach.

Days later, Mother goes shopping for bandages in the village, while Father lies at the beach, his legs still paralyzed. He sends Charlie on an errand, then drags himself up the beach on the sand and dies there. Mr. Haddy, hearing of the disaster, returns to help the family back to La Cieba. They head home, still in shock but thrilled to be returning home.

Bibliography

Coate, Samuel. Paul Theroux. Boston: Twayne, 1987. An excellent criticism and interpretation of Theroux’s life and fiction that analyzes themes and characters of his work. Includes an index. A volume in Twayne’s U.S. Authors series.

Edwards, Thomas R. “Paul Theroux’s Yankee Crusoe.” The New York Times Magazine, February 14, 1982. A detailed and wide-ranging review of The Mosquito Coast at the time of its first publication.

Fujii, Hikaru. “Journey to the End of the Father: Battlefield of Masculinity in The Mosquito Coast.” Critique 48, no. 2 (Winter, 2007): 168-183. Presents a detailed analysis of one of Theroux’s most important novels. Applies theories of masculinity and of power relationships to explain the motivations of both the protagonist and the narrator.

Lyons, Paul. “From Man-Eaters to Spam Eaters: Literary Tourism and the Discourse of Cannibalism from Herman Melville to Paul Theroux.” In Multiculturalism and Representation: Selected Essays, edited by John Rieder and Larry E. Smith. Honolulu: East-West Center, University of Hawaii, 1996. An exploration of the ways indigenous populations have been characterized in literature. Part of a larger study on the literary representation of diverse cultures.

Mowat, John. Strangers Ourselves: The Adventures of Paul Theroux. Madison, Wis.: Frog Books, 2006. Presents critical analysis of some of Theroux’s novels in addition to information about his life that sheds light on his literary influences.

Pineda, Baron L. Shipwrecked Identities: Navigating Race on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2006. Although focused on Nicaragua, this book describes the social conditions and race relations of the area that includes the southern tip of Honduras. Helpful for understanding the setting of The Mosquito Coast.