About the Author:
Wilkie Collins, in full William Wilkie Collins, (born Jan. 8, 1824, London, Eng.—died Sept. 23, 1889, London), English sensation novelist, early master of the mystery story, and pioneer of detective fiction.
The son of William Collins (1788–1847), the landscape painter, he developed a gift for inventing tales while still a schoolboy at a private boarding school. His first published work was a memoir to his father, who died in 1847, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A. (1848). His fiction followed shortly after: Antonina; or, the Fall of Rome (1850) and Basil (1852), a highly coloured tale of seduction and vengeance with a contemporary middle-class setting and passages of uncompromising realism. In 1851 he began an association with Dickens that exerted a formative influence on his career. Their admiration was mutual. Under Dickens’ influence, Collins developed a talent for characterization, humour, and popular success, while the older writer’s debt to Collins is evident in the more skillful and suspenseful plot structures of such novels as A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1860–61). Collins began contributing serials to Dickens’ periodical Household Words, and his first major work, The Woman in White (1860), appeared in Dickens’ All the Year Round. Among his most successful subsequent books were No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868). A master of intricate plot construction and ingenious narrative technique, Collins turned in his later career from sensation fiction to fiction with a purpose, attacking the marriage laws in Man and Wife (1870) and vivisection in Heart and Science (1883).
About the Story:
Blow Up with the Ship is a gripping story of robbery and crime on the high seas. It is narrated in the first person and the story has all the ingredients of a thriller. The backdrop is provided by a battle for independence in one of the Spanish colonies in South America. The action in the story takes place during a sea journey in a ship significantly named ‘The Good Intent’.
The narrator was sent to sea when still a boy and became a mate at the age of twenty-five. The incident took place in the year 1818 when the Spanish colonies in South America were fighting for independence. There was plenty of bloodshed between the government of Spain and the rebels under General Bolivar.
The writer sailed in the ship named, ‘The Good Intent’. The vessel was laden with gunpowder. It was sent to help a revolution. She had a crew of eight. As the ship contained gunpowder, they were harassed with a new regulation that they didn’t like. They were not allowed to smoke or light lanterns. But the Captain used to light the candle when he went to bed or when he looked over his charts on the cabin table. Therefore the regulations didn’t apply to him.
Finally, they reached the coast of South America and a boat came towards them rowed by two men, one was an Irishman and the other was an evil-looking native pilot. The crew was not allowed to reach the land till midnight. The native pilot was a “skinny, cowardly, quarrelsome fellow”. He picked quarrels with everyone. He lighted the pipe and the narrator became angry and tried to stop him. The pilot tried to push him. He raised his hand and the pilot fell down and pulled out his knife. The narrator slapped his murderous face.
The next morning the narrator was awakened by a scuffle and a gag in his mouth. His hands and legs were tied. The ship was in the hands of the Spaniards. They were swarming all over the ship. All seven members of the ship were killed except him. The pilot came there with a pilot’s stick and carpenter’s drill in one hand and a long piece of thin rope in the other. He put the candlestick, with the new candle lighted in it. He drilled a hole in the side of the barrel and the gunpowder came trickling out. He rubbed the powder into a whole length of thin rope. He then tied the rope to the candle which was just one foot away from him. He then whispered to the narrator “blow up with the ship” and everyone left the place with the gunpowder. The narrator was filled with fright and fainted.
The narrator woke up after eight months. He came to know that an American ship that came that way had saved him. But even now he is haunted by an old, flat-bottomed, kitchen candle stick. The usual paraphernalia of an adventure story is found in the story Blow up with the Ship. We could find dimly lit rooms, shady figures moving mysteriously on the ship deck and the final shoe down ending in violence and death. The story like other adventure stories, ends on a positive note with the rescue of the protagonist.
Works Cited
“Blow Up with the Ship by Wilkie Collins.” Literature Worms, https://www.literatureworms.com/2012/09/blow-up-with-ship-by-wilkie-collins.html#. Accessed 15 March 2023.
Jerome, Jerome K. “Wilkie Collins | British author | Britannica.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wilkie-Collins. Accessed 15 March 2023.
No comments:
Post a Comment