The People in the Trees

The group’s arrival on Ivu’ivu marks a shift in the novel as Norton realizes his dream of venturing into the unknown. No longer confined to the academic stuffiness of his Harvard lab, he can now delve into the world’s scientific mysteries. However, the arrival of the expedition also marks the beginning of the end for Ivu’ivu and foreshadows the impending destruction that will be wrought on the island when the wider world arrives to sate its greed for attaining immortality. Additionally, despite his apparent escape from the mundane, Norton cannot escape his loneliness and encounters it even in the natural landscape of the island. That is not the only part of his former life he cannot escape, however, for the influence of academia reasserts itself as the members of the expedition begin to bicker over their hypotheses of the dreamers’ true ages. Thus, while Norton is already beset by the ubiquitous Loneliness Within Community that dogs him throughout his life, he also experiences both the Narcissism in Academia and his own narcissistic tendencies, for his fixation upon and idealization of Tallent causes him to feel great resentment for Esme’s strong relationship with his newfound hero. This marks both his “idealization” of Tallent and his “devaluation” of Esme, classic examples of narcissistic behavior, which often exhibits a cycle of idealizing, devaluing, and discarding the individuals who occupy the narcissist’s social landscape.

To compound this issue, Norton perceives his own loneliness in the natural world around him even as he participates in the kind of scientific adventure he has always craved. He is particularly struck by the vuaka, tiny monkeys that live in enormous colonies and are considered a delicacy among the U’ivuans. As they make their way through the forest, the U’ivuan guides capture the vuakas for later consumption, and this elicits a strong emotional response from Norton, who writes, “I knew it was sentimental (not to mention pointless) to feel pity for the poor, pretty vuaka, and I didn’t want Tallent to think I was weak, so I said nothing. But that night, I thought of the vuaka […] [and] felt for a moment a despair so profound that I was momentarily unable to breathe” (124). In this moment, Norton sees himself in the vuaka and recognizes the feeling of Loneliness Within Community. These tiny creatures belong to a gigantic community and yet appear to Norton to be sad and full of despair. The loneliness he feels is reflected in those eyes, and their untimely demise at the hands of the guides intensifies his despair as he sees them separated from their large family. He therefore feels a mix of kinship and jealousy for the creatures, understanding that his own sadness stems from not having the same kind of large community to draw upon. By the end of the novel, Norton is more than ever like this vuaka, for he will also be separated from his large family of adopted children and weighed down by his own sorrow and isolation in prison.

It is also important to note that Norton’s first visit to Ivu’ivu represents the first time that outsiders of U’ivu are coming to the island, and throughout this section of the novel, the foreshadowing of the disasters to come are striking. The narrative weaves between lavish descriptions of the unique nature around the team and the clear cultural divide between the three guides and the three explorers. These aspects of the story hint at the broader theme of the Systemic Exploitation of Indigenous People, which will be fully realized later in the novel. Much of the apparent divide between the two halves of the group are demonstrated by their very different reactions to the world around them. For example, when the group sees an opa’ivu’eke for the first time, Esme, Tallent, and Norton look at it as though it is just a turtle, while Fa’a, Uva, and Tu visibly exhibit feelings of both excitement and fear, reflecting their profoundly different cultural background. Norton is struck by their reaction, stating, “[A]lthough at the moment I found their behavior, their near panic, curious, later I understood it: gods are for stories and heavens and other realms; they are not to be seen by men. But when we […] see what we are not meant to see, how can anything but disaster follow?” (131). Thus, although Norton ostensibly philosophizes about encroaching on the world of the gods, the author’s double meaning is clear, for whenever outside influence and greed descend upon an unsuspecting Indigenous community, the results are detrimental to the Indigenous people. Likewise, this passage foreshadows the grim reality that the arrival of the research team ultimately heralds the destruction of Ivu’ivu, for they will publicize their discovery of the immortality offered through the flesh of the opa’ivu’eke, and this fact is never meant to be known to anyone outside of the isolated Ivu’ivuan village that the expedition will soon discover.

Even so far from a lab, the culture of academia has an influence on the group and their discovery of the dreamers. As their startling discoveries start to stack up, the intellectual divisions between the different researchers becomes apparent, foreshadowing future strife. Tallent and Esme, both anthropologists, are quick to believe in the dreamers’ extreme longevity, while Norton, a medical scientist, refuses to do so, and the divide between them is a prime example of Narcissism in Academics, for Norton believes his cautious approach to the matter is superior and responsible while likewise believing Tallent and Esme’s stance to be ridiculous. He regrets being their colleague in this moment and looks down on them, refusing to accept the evidence in front of him until he can study it on a more scientific level.