Wow, little did I realize that I would have to read up on such an ‘interesting’ custom of sailors when I had to write a post on the prompt which simply said “Read the story of Richard Parker and Tom Dudley. Is what Dudley did defensible? What would you have done?” Now, before you start figuring out what it is that Dudley actually did that was so controversial, let me first put up the disclaimer that this particular incident is not for the weak of heart nor is it particularly tasteful. I personally didn’t have an issue reading up about it or having to write a post about it, but I can clearly understand that most readers of this blog might find it distasteful and they can therefore stop reading this post right here and now. Any further reading needs to be done only at your own risk.
The story goes thus. It is a custom among shipwrecked sailors who have been lost at sea for more than a few days to draw straws among themselves and allow themselves to be killed and eaten by the rest of the crew. Yes, it is a peculiarly civilized form of cannibalism that is accepted among shipwrecked sailors. This particular incident referred to which involved Richard Parker and Tom Dudley is known popularly as the Mignonette Affair named after the yacht which was shipwrecked in 1884 in which both these men were sailing. What is unique about this story is the fact that Dudley didn’t necessarily follow the ordinarily followed custom of picking straws for the sailor to be killed and eaten. Dudley and two other chose Richard Parker as the first victim due to the fact that Parker had taken particularly ill after having drunk seawater and was going to die in a few days anyway.
The irony of this incident is the fact that even before Parker could be eaten up fully by the survivors, they managed to be rescued. And given that they had made the choice of adopting cannibalism, all of them were put on trial. While a majority of sailors and men associated with the sea as a profession understood the plight of the survivors and why they had to make the difficult choice to survive, the fact remained that Dudley’s frankness and openness regarding the circumstances that led them to choose Parker as the victim surprised everybody in the courthouse. He was quite candid about the fact that while they considered the ‘custom of the sea’ of drawing straws to pick the victim, they ignored it due to the sheer practicality of selecting Parker for this purpose. And the judge, not following earlier precedents in this situation ended up convicting Dudley and his mates for the gruesome murder of Dudley. Read more about this incident in this particular NY Times article which actually is a book review.
As for the question regarding whether what Dudley did is defensible, I am of the opinion that whatever choices he made were made with a clear understanding of the consequences of the same and with the full consent of the other two survivors as well. All of them in the shipwrecked boat clearly knew that Parker had consumed seawater and it was only a matter of time before he died even without any intervention from their part. Does that mean I condone cannibalism?
No, I don’t, not by any stretch of imagination. But having said that, man, since times immemorial has been doing ‘whatever is required’ to survive and the fact that Charles Darwin’s book talks about ‘survival of the fittest’ being the only reason that man has evolved to become the dominant species among countless other species on earth means that man continues to do whatever is required to continue to survive and thrive. Using this logic, what Dudley did is understandable, although probably not condonable by law. In fact, most sailors and general public opinion was quite favorable towards Dudley and the survivors, but for whatever reason, the judge and law used the fact that ‘the custom of the sea’ was not appropriately followed in this case.
Given that this is quite a controversial and relatively distasteful topic, it would be quite interesting to read your thoughts on this particular topic in the comments section. Do read the article and then come back and post your comments here.
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This post is written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts where the idea is to publish at least one post a day based on the prompts provided.
Today’s prompt was “Read the story of Richard Parker and Tom Dudley. Is what Dudley did defensible? What would you have done?”
