It's no longer just Mau and Daphne, but a whole-well, nation. Just wait about a century, Mau! It Takes a NationĪs more people arrive on the island, things start to change. He even tentatively explores the Women's Place, which was "like the moon knew where it was but didn't even think about going there" (3.24). He starts on the Boys' Island, but soon learns the ways of the Men's Place, also known as the Grandfather's Cave. Mau's journeys across the island mirror his inner journeys through different roles in life. Hey, guess who else is the only one of his/its kind left? Yep, that ragged stem might as well be Mau, standing against all odds. Early on, we see the island "Had been stripped of all its trees but one, which was a ragged stem with, against all hope, a few leaves still on it" (2.3). The island and Mau are closely connected, and not just because Mau is the only resident still living. And it might just be the cradle of civilization, the birthplace of humanity. But by the end of the novel, he realizes that it's not just important to him: it's important to the world: "The Nation had been old, older than the reef" (12.58), over "a hundred thousand years old" (15.78). You won't find that on a map either, but if you did, it would be somewhere between the United States and England. It exists in a parallel universe in the middle of the Great Southern Pelagic Ocean. You won't find the Sunrise Islands on any of our maps.
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