47 pages • 1 hour read
Timothy FindleyNot Wanted on the Voyage
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaBook 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 115-145 Summary
Noah commences construction of the ark. Some of the laborers include Emma’s brothers, with whom Dr. Noyes has forbidden her to speak. Mrs. Noyes is fond of Emma’s family and goes against her husband’s orders to bring Emma to see her father. She thinks it is “crazy” that she and Emma cannot visit them openly, but feels she must be obedient to her husband out of self-preservation, if nothing else. Mrs. Noyes enjoys watching the happy reunion of family and finds that the great risk she took in disobeying her violent husband was worth it, “just to have sat these few brief moments beside this tall, sane, loving man” (118). Mrs. Noyes is disheartened by the fact that she knows that they will all soon drown, while Emma remains blissfully ignorant of the fact.
Ham and Lucy are married, despite the disapproval of Dr. Noyes, who grudgingly allows it due to the wording of Yaweh’s decree—that “Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives” would board the ark (120). Japeth is envious of their wedded bliss, resenting them for the joys absent from his own life. Meanwhile, Hannah finally admits that she is three to four months pregnant, but prays that she is wrong.
The ark is completed. It is awe-inspiring in size, but ugly to behold, so much so that Noah hopes to renegotiate his contract with Yaweh so he does not have to live on it for 100 years. Dust storms plague the area as they begin the difficult, two-day process of rounding up the animals and choosing which one may board the ark. God has also left 70 pairs of animals for this task, “over half of them vicious and all of them terrified” (122).
Mrs. Noyes is shown to be more empathetic than in the previous book, as she is seen treating Emma with kindness and displaying her deep love of her sheep. As was described in the Prologue, there is a great fire and a mass killing of animals. Mrs. Noyes races through a burning structure, finding Ham, who puts out the fire in her skirts and hands her Mottyl. When confronted with the fact that Noah had planned to kill Mottyl just as he was killing all of the other animals on their lands, she swears that she will kill him and insists that she will not board the ark and be spared out of spite. She asks Ham to stay, and thus die, with her, but he hesitates, as he is a newlywed. Mrs. Noyes understands and bears him no ill will. Shem appears and takes her to her husband.
For the first time, Mrs. Noyes is shown to directly and intentionally confront her husband. As he waxes on about how killing the animals was a necessary sacrifice, she points out that many of the animals he killed were not sacrifice animals to begin with. She goes on to say that she will not go on the ark if Mottyl can’t go with her. Dr. Noyes responds to her show of backbone with violence, striking her hard. In the kerfuffle, Mottyl leaps from her arms and disappears. Noah changes tactics, trying to “reason” with his wife that he’s right and the Edict of God must be followed to the letter. He takes her silence for agreement and it begins to rain—a mauve rain. The rains later turn opaque and milky, causing Noah to declare that the “evil” rain has given way to the “passionate rain”—"the rain of Onan” (130).
Mrs. Noyes’s show of acceptance of her husband’s decision proves to be empty as she secretly leaves the ark to search for Mottyl, who is pregnant by Yaweh’s own tomcat, Abraham. Noah flies into a panic because the Edict stated that all eight of them would board the ark; he believes that if this fails to occur precisely in agreement with the Edict—if Mrs. Noyes does not return—they will all die. She journeys through their estate, to the orchard, in search of the apples that had always been reserved only for the elders like Noah, cutting herself on the glass in the wall she climbed to find her food. Meanwhile, Mottyl is chased by Vixen, but gives her two eggs out of empathy, and convinces the lemurs, Bip and Ringer, to get on the ark and save themselves. Neither Mrs. Noyes nor her cat have any intention of boarding it themselves.
Pages 146-193 Summary
Mrs. Noyes finds the freedom from the strictures of civilization—and her oppressive husband—to be wonderful. While reveling in her newfound personal liberty, she notices the figure of someone in distress. Initially believing it to be her mother, Mrs. Noyes soon finds that it is Lotte, Emma’s older sister. Lotte has a genetic abnormality resulting in developmental disabilities and a hairy body. As Mrs. Noyes prepares to ford the river to rescue the frightened child, the fairies climb onto her, despite her repeated warnings that she’s going to swim the river and it may well cause them to drown. Mrs. Noyes swims across the flooded river with difficulty, praying not to God, who she swears she will never pray to again, but to the river, saying, “Oh, please, don’t let a child see me drown” (154). Despite her fears that the fairies will drown (“Oh, Yaweh—you bastard!”), hundreds survive and thank her, flying off as she comforts Lotte (154).
Mrs. Noyes rows Lotte across the river, shielding her from any and all unpleasantness involved. When they make their way back to the ark, Mrs. Noyes demands entrance, but Noah refuses to allow Lotte inside. In response, Mrs. Noyes threatens to reveal a shameful secret. Mrs. Noyes tells Emma the truth of the cause of her marriage to Japeth. Japeth had a twin brother like Lotte—Adam—who they had drowned when he was only a day old. They had intentionally married Japeth to Emma because of her sister; that way, if any of their children had the abnormality, it would be blamed on her lineage, not his, thus sparing Noah the shame of having it known that he had fathered such a child despite being the friend of God. Mrs. Noyes bargains Lotte’s entrance to the ark for her and Emma’s silence on the matter, preserving Noah’s pride. Noah agrees, lulling them into a false sense of security.
Noah orders Hannah to wrap Lotte in a blanket and take her inside. Mrs. Noyes realizes what he intends but Noah resorts to violence, to prevent interference. Japeth slits Lotte’s throat on his father’s orders, believing her to be an ape, “and an ape was only an animal. Nothing human” (170). The sight of this sends Hannah into shock, as she had no knowledge of the murderous plan and had only been following Noah’s orders. They give the body to Mrs. Noyes to mourn, which she takes. She then leaves the ark. Mrs. Noyes speaks kindly to the corpse and tries to find a way to give her a proper burial where the remaining scavengers will not get to her. Meanwhile, Noah sends Ham and Lucy to look for Mrs. Noyes as the Edict must be followed to the letter.
Mrs. Noyes continues to speak to Lotte’s body as if Lotte were alive and finds the remains of one of her secret stashes of gin. She drunkenly plays piano for Lotte, but when she returns, the body has disappeared. She finds the corpse outside, throwing herself on the body in her grief. When she turns her over, she finds the eyes have been pecked out by birds. Mrs. Noyes carries Lotte’s body back inside the house, protecting her from the swooping scavengers. In her grief, she gives her buttons for eyes, kisses her in reassurance that it will not hurt before sewing up her neck wound, and gives her a “human burial” in her trousseau trunk.
While searching for Mrs. Noyes, Ham and Lucy discuss Noah’s irrational intransigence and narcissism. Ham tells his wife that Noah does not believe in science, only “miracles and alchemy. Even though he’s failed at both” (180). Lucy cheekily says that she’ll give him lessons one day. Ham thinks it is an odd joke, and is flabbergasted when she turns her bamboo parasol frame into gold.
A still-drunk Mrs. Noyes considers the cruelty of the flood, but celebrates that she has found herself again. She muses that she is more herself than she had been before the events, thinking that she is going to die even though she does not want to. She wonders who she should pray to “when you want to live and there isn’t any God,” and concludes that “maybe we should pray to each other” (182). When Lucy finds her in the bathhouse, she worries she’s going to be dragged back to her husband. Instead, Lucy inquires whether she has found her cat. When the answer is no, she encourages Mrs. Noyes to keep trying and wishes her luck, disappearing without informing her husband that she found his mother.
Mottyl’s friend, Crowe, directs Mrs. Noyes to her nest, where Mottyl is sheltered. The steaming rain turns into “pinecone rain”—big, golden, lucent, oily globs. After being reunited with Mottyl, Mrs. Noyes returns to the ark. It is the seventh day of the rains and the sky has turned from gold to silver to grey to black. A bruised and disheveled Mrs. Noyes plays at contrition and obedience to her husband, bringing more than apples onto the ark in her aprons.
The remaining animals of the area and fairies flock to the ark in the hopes of rescue, but none are permitted entrance.
Book 2 Analysis
As the rain and sky serve as portents that things are increasing in intensity, the characters are also explored to new depths. Mrs. Noyes proves to be something of a foil to her husband, demonstrating the traits he lacks. Dr. Noyes is shown to be a narcissistic, controlling abuser, whereas Mrs. Noyes is shown to be an empathetic, maternal archetype, who offers comfort to not only the chosen few, but even the dead body of a girl she was not expected to love due to social norms. Dr. Noyes makes demands and expects everyone to follow without question, while Mrs. Noyes gets her hands dirty and bruised in the defense of others. This is illustrated in their final confrontation of the book, where Dr. Noyes is calm, clean, and protected from the rain by his umbrella, while Mrs. Noyes is bruised and bleeding. She nonetheless manages to bring sustenance to the ark in the form of the apples he had carelessly forgotten. Furthermore, despite his wife’s significant efforts, Dr. Noyes denies admittance to the ark—and thus survival—to Lotte, Mottyl, and the hundreds of fairies Mrs. Noyes saved.
Religion continues to decay, as the absentee God fails to appear and the rains begin. As she surveys the death and destruction allowed if not commanded by Yaweh, Mrs. Noyes determines that there is no God worthy of Lotte and swears not to pray to Yaweh anymore. This leads to a philosophical quandary—to whom should she pray if not God? If the familiar structure of religion is no more, how are they to receive the support they have been getting from that institution? She considers praying to the things that surround her, natural things like the river and the sky, but also considers whether the living things should not draw strength by praying to one another instead.
The question of what causes the genetic abnormality is raised but unanswered. What is known is that Dr. and Mrs. Noyes had such a child and, believing his body to reflect a deformity, drowned him, rather than face the shame of it. Further, they had believed the babe to be the only one of his kind until meeting Lotte. Given that these events had happened long before Yaweh’s suicide, one can only wonder why Dr. Noyes had never asked his dear friend, God, why such children were born. It is reasonable to suspect, given his behavior through the book so far, that this was due to shame, and that he would not allow the discussion of anything which might make God appear to be less than ideal in any way. The stigma associated with such children appears to be a powerful force, though there are only two known cases to date, in the world of the novel. Considering that Lotte is good-natured and able to understand basic questions, it is unclear what children with her genetic abnormality may represent metaphorically, beyond the cultural rejection of those who deviate from the norm, even if that deviation is harmless to society.
