52 pages • 1 hour read
Eva IbbotsonJourney to the River Sea
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
At Finn’s hut, Clovis prepares for his journey to Westwood, having memorized everything that Finn can tell him of his history there. Finn also reveals the history of the Carters’ exploitation and theft of the Indigenous land they currently inhabit. Mr. Carter had made a contract with the Tapuri tribe to buy the land and leave the original longhouse standing, as it was the site of a shaman’s death and considered sacred. However, after Mr. Carter made the deal, he only paid one-third of what he owed and tore the longhouse down to build his bungalow. The locals believe the Carter land to be cursed by the spirit of the shaman, and they refuse to land their boats there. Clovis and Finn keep the curse a secret from Maia, and Furo promises to protect Maia from the curse itself.
Before he leaves with Finn for Manaus, Clovis gives Maia acting tips on how to appear guilty. Maia needs to trick the twins into believing her staged betrayal of Finn’s location to ensure their plan’s success. At her piano lessons with her friend Netta’s father, Mr. Haltmann, Maia is invited to a party at Sergei Keminsky’s mansion in Manaus; this location will serve as the perfect setting for her to stage her reveal of Clovis’s hiding spot to the twins. She asks her friend Sergei if he will invite the twins to his party as well, and he reluctantly agrees. Mrs. Carter accepts the invitation, hoping to use the Keminskys’ social influence and connections to improve her girls’ own social standing. Meanwhile, tired of the jungle and feeling poorly, Trapwood and Low decide to will board the boat leaving for England the next day, regardless of whether they find the Taverner boy or not.
Chapter 12 Summary
While Maia and the twins head to the party, Finn rows Clovis to the museum in Manaus in his canoe. Maia is pleasantly distracted by dancing and socializing at the elegant party, but she tries to concentrate on her mission to entrap the twins. She makes a show of anxiously looking out the window at the dock. The twins get suspicious and follow her to the cloakroom, where Maia unpacks a sandwich and some nuts while the twins spy on her. Feeling vindicated, the twins confront Maia, twisting her arm and pulling her hair until she confesses that the Taverner boy is hiding in the museum. Just as she does, Sergei bursts into the cloakroom and demands that the twins let Maia go. The twins run off.
Chapter 13 Summary
The twins rush out into the night, arguing over whether to tell their mother or to head straight to the investigators to claim their reward. They decide to get their mother and then inform Trapwood and Low of Maia’s confession. When the investigators hear the news, they rush into action. But when they break into the museum, they can’t find the trapdoor among the displays, so they retrieve Maia from Sergei’s party and interrogate her, compelling her to reveal the trapdoor location. When they return to the museum, Miss Minton insists on accompanying them.
At the museum, they open the trapdoor to find Finn, disguised as a Brazilian servant, and wrestle him to the ground. But just as it seems they will take him away, Miss Minton calls to Clovis, who is hiding in the cellar. She addresses him as “Finn Taverner” and calls on him to be brave and take up his place in the Taverner family. Clovis, emboldened by Miss Minton’s support, bravely steps forward and introduces himself as Finn to the investigators, ordering them to escort him to the ship.
Chapter 14 Summary
Finn makes the final preparations for his journey to find his mother’s tribe, fixing and packing up his father’s boat, the Arabella. Miss Minton confirms Finn’s guess that it was named after her. She tells Finn and Maia about her time at Westwood where she befriended his father, Bernard, when she was a young maid. He had encouraged her to get an education, inspiring her to get a degree in London and become a governess. Bernard had written her letters of his life in the Amazon, and she took the job with the Carters so that she could visit him, not realizing that he had already died. This is what led her to Finn.
While Miss Minton explores the jungle surrounding Bernard’s hut, she discovers a rare butterfly specimen caught in a spider’s web. She takes it to Professor Glastonberry to identify it, and he exclaims that it is a Hahnet’s Swallowtail and worth a good amount of money. He suggests that Miss Minton could become a good naturalist and that collecting natural specimens to sell would allow her to make a better living than she would as a governess. Additionally, the Keminsky governess announces that she is returning home and offers Miss Minton the chance to take over her position, which pays more than the Carters. Miss Minton is interested in both options, but she is loyal to Maia and won’t leave her, so she asks the Keminsky family if they would let Maia stay with them as well.
As the day of Finn’s launch grows closer, Maia feels more and more upset that she is not allowed to go with him because it’s too dangerous and she needs to focus on her education. They talk about their futures; Finn hopes to learn Indigenous medicine from the Xanti people, and Maia wants to study and record the traditional songs of Brazil. Finn teaches her the jungle survival skills that he learned from his father. When he finally sets sail, Maia is sad to be left behind, blaming the wind for taking him.
Chapter 15 Summary
At Westwood, Clovis plays his part as Finn Taverner perfectly. He remembers the servants’ names and impresses Finn’s aunts with his manners. He meets their three daughters, who are at first nervous to meet him but then decide that they would be happy to do their duty and marry him if their mother wished it. Sir Aubrey is amazed at how similar Clovis looks to his ancestor’s paintings in the hallway. Clovis, who is impressed by the grandness of the property and enjoys the decadent food, decides that he is happy to keep up the ruse for a few weeks at least to protect Finn.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
Chapters 11 and 12 heighten and sharpen the portrayal of the Carters as examples of the corrosive effects of Human Greed and Exploitation on Indigenous people and environments. Finn's tale of Mr. Carter’s crimes and exploitation of the local people and their land intensifies the moral bankruptcy of the Carters. This adds to the catharsis at their misery later in the novel when their corruption is exposed and their misdeeds punished by the housefire. Mr. Carter’s betrayal of his agreement with the Indigenous people, as well as his wanton destruction of their sacred ground, demonstrates his selfish disregard for any cultures outside his own. The replacement of the local people’s communal longhouse with his own arrogant, colonial-style private bungalow stands as a physical manifestation of the eradication of Indigenous people’s cooperative lifestyles, for the edifice represents a colonialist emphasis on hierarchical and privatized living. The Carters’ dishonesty therefore creates a deep social rift between themselves and the Brazilian locals, who curse them, hoping “that one day the old medicine man’s spirit, which had been disturbed and shamed, would rise up against the Carters, and the family would get what they deserved” (105). The novel portrays the division between colonizer and colonized as the outcome of an attitude of self-absorption and alienating behaviors, as the Carters fail to connect with the landscape or the people in it and turn destructive.
On the other hand, Maia is rewarded with both material goods and a wealth of positive relationships for her ability to overcome her fear and connect with the environment and other people. In Chapter 12, for example, her friendship with Sergei Keminsky is demonstrated to elevate her social status over the Carter twins as well as her physical beauty. Maia is invited to a party by “one of the richest families in Manaus” and gains a mark of social favor that is coveted by Mrs. Carter, whose “eyes gleamed” (107) at the chance to improve her daughters’ social status through the connection. At the party, Maia is portrayed as more physically appealing and better-dressed than the twins, signifying her superior desirability. Through literary allusion to her Cinderella transformation, the novel indicates that she has overcome her humble origins. Accordingly, her dress is “rustling silk cut like an Elizabethan dress” that compliments her “waist-length hair” and conveys her elegance and maturation (111). By contrast, the twins are humorously dressed in a “fleshy pink” and “a double row of ruffles made them look like those hams one sees on a butcher’s slabs” (111). The comparison of the twins to farm animals echoes the earlier comparison of the Taverners to braying donkeys; the novel repeatedly uses such imagery to suggest these characters’ low moral standing and unlikability. Furthermore, the twins’ outright violence to Maia in the cloak room and Sergei’s rush to her defense reflects The Value of Friendship as a protective force in the face of injustices large and small. Ultimately, Maia’s friendships are shown as the key to her life of adventure and wealth, while the Carters’ selfishness reaps nothing but poverty and misfortune in the end.
The subplot of Miss Minton’s relationship with Finn’s father parallels and supports Maia’s development in the novel. She and Bernard share a love of natural discovery that leads them to pursue careers as naturalists, embracing Romantic Portrayals of Wilderness Exploration. Miss Minton’s kindness and connection to Bernard ultimately leads her to the discovery of the rare and exotic butterfly specimen, which is a symbol of hope for her to escape a limited salary and career of servitude as a governess and gain financial independence by collecting and selling her own discoveries. In this way, Miss Minton’s rags-to-riches journey parallels Clovis’s development as he grows into his role at Westwood, for they are both transformed through their brave choices and demonstrations of loyalty.
