Castaway
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island either to evade their captors or the world in general. Alternatively a person or item can be cast away, meaning rejected or discarded.
The provisions and resources available to castaways allow them to live on the island until other people arrive to take them off the island. However, such rescue missions may never happen if the person is not known to still be alive, the fact that they are missing is unknown or if the island is not mapped. These scenarios have given rise to the plots of numerous stories in the form of novels and film.
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Castaways in popular culture
Various novels, television shows and films tell the story of castaways:
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Pre-20th century
- The Odyssey, an ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer
- Sinbad the Sailor, a Middle Eastern folk tale
- Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus), a 12th-century novel by Ibn Tufail
- Theologus Autodidactus, a 13th-century novel by Ibn al-Nafis
- Wildflower The Barbara Crawford Thompson Story, is based on the life of a 12-year-old Barbara Crawford who was taken from her home in Sydney in 1843. She was rescued after being shipwrecked in November 1844
- Robinson Crusoe (1719), a novel by Daniel Defoe based loosely on the real life of Alexander Selkirk, first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English
- Lemuel Gulliver, a physician in Gulliver's Travels, a satire by Jonathan Swift.
- The Swiss Family Robinson, an 1812 book by Johann David Wyss that has been adapted into various film and television versions
- Ben Gunn, a pirate marooned in Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Several late 19th century novels by Jules Verne, such as In Search of the Castaways (1868), The Mysterious Island (1874), Godfrey Morgan (also known as School for Robinsons, 1882), and Two Years' Vacation (1888)
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Novels
This is a list of fiction. There are also memoirs such as Castaway.
- The Blue Lagoon, a 1908 romance novel by Henry De Vere Stacpoole about two children stranded on a tropical island after a shipwreck, with multiple film adaptations
- Baby Island, a 1937 novel by Carol Ryrie Brink about two preteen sisters caring for four babies on a South Seas island
- Survivor Type, a 1982 short story by Stephen King about a shipwrecked surgeon who ends up eating parts of his own body to survive
- Lord of the Flies, a novel by William Golding, and several movie versions
- Hatchet, a novel that follows the life of a teenage boy as he survives in the Canadian wilderness after the plane he was on crashes.
- Island of the Blue Dolphins, a book by Scott O'Dell about a girl marooned on an island for 18 years
- Kensuke's Kingdom, a 1999 children's novel by Michael Morpurgo about a boy who travels the world with his parents but ends up marooned on an island.
- Life of Pi, in which the title character, Pi Patel, spends months on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger
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Films
| Title | Director | Notable cast | Summary | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Blue Lagoon | W. Bowden, Dick Cruickshanks | Molly Adair | First film adaptation of the novel. | 1923 | |
| Mr. Robinson Crusoe | A. Edward Sutherland | Douglas Fairbanks | A yachtsman makes a bet his friends that he can swim ashore on a remote island in the South Seas with nothing but a toothbrush and be "living the life of Riley" when they return. | 1932 | |
| The Blue Lagoon | Frank Launder | Jean Simmons, Donald Houston | Second film adaptation of the novel. | 1949 | |
| Swiss Family Robinson | Ken Annakin | John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, James MacArthur | Walt Disney adaptation based on the book of the same name. | 1960 | |
| In Search of the Castaways | Robert Stevenson | Hayley Mills, Maurice Chevalier, George Sanders, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Michael Anderson, Jr. | Walt Disney adaptation based on the book of the same name. | 1962 | |
| Lord of the Flies | Peter Brook | James Aubrey, Tom Chapin and Hugh Edwards | Based on the book of the same name. | 1963 | Awards: 1 NBR Award |
| Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. | Byron Paul | Dick Van Dyke | Walt Disney adaptation based on the book of the same name. | 1966 | Awards: 1 Golden Laurel |
| Hell in the Pacific | John Boorman | Lee Marvin, Toshiro Mifune | An American pilot and a Japanese naval captain match wits when both are marooned on an uninhabited island during World War II. | 1968 | |
| Swept Away | Lina Wertmüller | Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato | A rich woman and a communist sailor are stranded on a Mediterranean island. | 1974 | Awards: 1 David di Donatello Award, 1 other award |
| The Blue Lagoon | Randal Kleiser | Brooke Shields, Christopher Atkins, Leo McKern | Two shipwrecked children grow up on a tropical island. | 1980 | Third film version of the novel. |
| Castaway | Nicolas Roeg | Oliver Reed, Amanda Donohoe | Based on the book of the same name. | 1986 | |
| Lord of the Flies | Harry Hook | Balthazar Getty, Chris Furrh, Danuel Pipoly | Shipwrecked on a tropical island, a group of English schoolchildren eventually revert to savagery in spite of the efforts of a few rational children. | 1990 | Remake of the 1963 film of the same title. |
| Return to the Blue Lagoon | William A. Graham | Brian Krause, Milla Jovovich, Lisa Pelikan | The son of the original castaways is marooned with a young girl on a tropical island. | 1991 | Sequel to The Blue Lagoon. |
| Robinson Crusoe | Rod Hardy, George T. Miller | Pierce Brosnan | Film adaptation loosely based on the novel. | 1997 | |
| Six Days Seven Nights | Ivan Reitman | Harrison Ford, Anne Heche, David Schwimmer | A New York magazine editor and a pilot fight pirates and face other dangers after crash landing on a deserted South Seas island. | 1998 | |
| Cast Away | Robert Zemeckis | Tom Hanks | After surviving a plane crash, a FedEx systems analyst finds himself stranded on a deserted island. | 2000 | Awards: 1 Golden Globe, 15 other awards |
| Swept Away | Guy Ritchie | Madonna, Adriano Giannini, Bruce Greenwood | Remake of the 1974 film of the same title. | 2002 | |
| Survival Island | Stewart Raffill | Billy Zane, Kelly Brook, Juan Pablo Di Pace | A love triangle turns deadly when a husband and wife, and her lover, are stranded on a desert island. | 2005 | |
| The Breed | Nicholas Mastandrea | Michelle Rodriguez, Oliver Hudson, Taryn Manning | A group of college students fly to a "deserted" island for a party weekend find themselves under siege by murderous hounds. | 2006 | |
| Life of Pi | Ang Lee | Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain | A boy along with a Tiger gets cast away in sea in a shipwreck. | 2012 | Awards: 4 Academy Awards, 1 Golden Globe, 2 BAFTAs, 51 other awards |
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Television
| Title | Network | Notable cast | Summary | Years | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gilligan's Island | CBS | Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson, Dawn Wells | Classic sitcom about seven castaways stranded on a desert island. | 1964-1967 | Awards: 3 TV Land Awards, 1 other award | |
| The Admirable Crichton | NBC | Norman Barrs, Pamela Brown, Edward Cicciarelli | A group of English aristocrats are shipwrecked when their yacht runs around on a South Pacific island. | 1968 | Television film | |
| The New People | ABC | Tiffany Bolling, Zooey Hall, David Moses | A group of young college students are stranded after their plane crashes on a mysterious island in the south Pacific Ocean. | 1969-1970 | ||
| Lost Flight | NBC | Lloyd Bridges, Anne Francis, Ralph Meeker | The crew and passengers of a jet airliner crash struggle to survive on an uninhabited South Pacific island. | 1970 | Television film | |
| Der Seawolf | ZDF ORTF | Edward Meeks, Raimund Harmstorf, Reinhard Glemnitz | Based on the book of the same name. | 1971-1973 | Television mini-series | |
| The Cay | NBC | James Earl Jones, Alfred Lutter III | Based on the book of the same name. | 1974 | Television film | |
| Shogun | NBC | Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune, Yoko Shimada | An English navigator and his crew are shipwrecked in feudal Japan. | 1980 | Television mini-series. Awards: 3 Golden Globes, 5 other awards | |
| Danger Island | NBC | Lisa Banes, Richard Beymer, Maria Celedonio | A group of vacationers survive an airliner at sea on a flight and are cast ashore on a mysterious island. | 1992 | Television film | |
| Mysterious Island | Family Channel | Alan Scarfe, Colette Stevenson, Stephen Lovatt | Based on the book of the same name. | 1995 | ||
| Bermuda Triangle | ABC | Sam Behrens, Susanna Thompson, Lisa Jakub | After their boat sinks in an unusual storm, a family become stranded on an island in the "27th dimension". | 1996 | Television film | |
| Forbidden Island | Nikita Ager, Paul Kersey, Grayson McCouch | Survivors of a plane crash are stranded on a mysterious tropical island which possesses supernatural powers. | 1999 | |||
| Survivor | CBS | N/A | Reality television series that pits contestants against each other on various remote island areas. | 2000- | ||
| Castaway 2000 | BBC | N/A | Reality television series in which a volunteer community lived for a year on the previously uninhabited Taransay in the Outer Hebrides | 2000-2001 | ||
| Jumping Ship | Disney Channel | Joey Lawrence, Matthew Lawrence, Andrew Lawrence | Three brothers sailing to Australia for summer vacation are forced to abandon ship during an encounter with modern-day pirates. | 2001 | Television movie. Sequel to Horse Sense. | |
| Dinotopia | ABC | Tyron Leitso, Wentworth Miller, David Thewlis | Two American teenage boys on a joyride in their father's plane crash land on an isolated island where humans and sentient dinosaurs peacefully coexist. | 2002 | Television mini-series. Awards: 1 Primetime Emmy, 5 other awards | |
| Lost | ABC | Terry O'Quinn, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia | Drama series about the 48 survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 as they try to survive on a mysterious island in the South Pacific. | 2004-2010 | Awards: 1 Golden Globe, 56 other awards | |
| Mysterious Island | Hallmark Channel | Kyle MacLachlan, Gabrielle Anwar, Patrick Stewart | Based on the book of the same name. | 2005 | Television film | |
| Flight 29 Down | Discovery Kids | Allen Alvarado, Jeremy James Kissner, Johnny Pacar | Adventure series about teenagers after a plane crash on an island somewhere in the South Pacific. | 2005-2010 | ||
| Blue Lagoon: The Awakening | Lifetime | Indiana Evans, Brenton Thwaites | Remake of the The Blue Lagoon set in the 21st century. | 2012 | Television film | |
| Arrow | WBTD | Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, Colin Donnell | Based on the fictional character Green Arrow. Oliver Queen is a castaway, and to survive he must forge himself into a weapon. He goes on to become a vigilante crime-fighter to clean up his city. | 2012- |
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Games
- Johnny Castaway (1993), a screensaver that follows the daily exploits of its namesake
- The Island (1993)
- The ClueFinders 5th Grade Adventures: The Secret of the Living Volcano (1999), a PC game created by The Learning Company
- Survival Kids (1999)
- Stranded (2003)
- Let's Go Jungle!: Lost on the Island of Spice (2006)
- Lost in Blue (2005)
- The Sims 2: Castaway (2007)
- Lost in Blue 2 (2007)
- Lost in Blue 3 (2007)
- Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked (2008)
- The Sims Castaway Stories (2008)
- Return to Mysterious Island 2 (2009)
- Return to Mysterious Island (2004)
- Stranded Deep (2015)
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Minor part of the story
Castaways are part of other stories as well, where the event is not the central plot but is still an important aspect. Examples include:
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Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 interview show in which the subject is invited to consider themselves as a castaway on a desert island, and then select their eight favourite records, one favourite book (in addition to The Bible and books by Shakespeare), and a luxury inanimate object to occupy their time.
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See also
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Castaway" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
