Actor Tom Hanks created a truly Memorable Hermit in the 2000 motion picture Cast Away. Hanks’ character, Fed-Ex manager Chuck Noland, is the only survivor of a plane crash and is forced to survive alone on a desert island for four years. His transition from a portly, time-obsessed urbanite to a tan, bearded, slightly-emaciated athlete is dramatically presented in one scene change. (A one-year hiatus during filmmaking gave Tom Hanks the time to lose 55 pounds.) The film tracks Noland’s acquisition of survival skills as well as his return home after four years alone.
The film is food for thought on many levels. Noland is clearly a different man after his four years of solitude. The life he left behind has also changed – people have moved on without him, including the love of his life.
Naturally, I was most fascinated with the challenges Noland faced while on the island. Contemplating how you would fair facing similar circumstances is part of the movie’s fun. The daily challenge of survival at a subsistence level is a lot different than choosing a comfortable level of solitude with access to modern amenities.
Would you (as Chuck Noland does) anthropomorphize a volleyball for someone to talk with? How long would it take before you decided to risk all and leave the relative, though uncomfortable, safety of the island to challenge the sea on a rickety raft?
Personally, if there was any other life on the island (birds, rodents, or even non-toxic reptiles), I’d like to think I’d try for a relationship with one of them over talking to an inanimate object. On the other hand, you don’t want to ultimately face having to eat a creature you’ve befriended – no protein in a volleyball.
As much as I treasure solitude, surviving at a subsistence level holds little appeal for me. It would be a laborious challenge alone – not a game like we see on television’s Survivor and Lost which were both developed after Cast Away’s success.
Although I can find genuine contentment in relative simplicity, and I’m fairly certain I could do well without much human interaction, trying to survive without books might launch my raft off the island – a library or die.
