Gun Island

Cinta arrives in the morning and Deen, holding the Salgari book, asks if he has been reading it. He pales and confesses that he doesn’t feel like himself; so many strange occurrences have happened, the latest of which was the spider. He theoretically knows there is a natural, scientific explanation for the recent strange occurrences, given the rising global temperatures, but still feels uneasy. Cinta asserts that the rising temperatures are not natural, but are caused by human activity and pollution. Cinta observes that Deen’s feeling of fading away and losing his will appears concurrent with symptoms of possession that people experienced during the Spanish Inquisition. Cinta reflects on how their ancestors would worry about this, as they needed to assert their will on the natural environment to survive. The modern world, conversely, is so mechanized and automated that one doesn’t need to assert one’s presence at all; as a result, it simply fades away. Cinta suggests that “the world of today presents all the symptoms of demonic possession” (236-37) because human beings see monstrous things happening and do nothing about it. She claims that what Deen is feeling is the opposite of a loss of will; it is a reawakening, in which he is becoming more aware of the natural world around him.