Turtle Island

Will Landschulz
Am. Lit Per. 2
Mrs. LaMadeleine

Turtle Island gives Eustace a place to start his own utopia.  More importantly, it gives him tangible goals  and a target for those goals.  Goals like "I need this piece of land, and this piece, and this piece" rather than "I want to build a utopia."  Naturally, this also endows him with drive and tenacity.  But it also underlines the things he feels are missing, namely, a girlfriend.  He needs a girl who is "Brilliant, brave, strong, [several other characteristics skipped] . . . the gentle touch that would humanize his . . . visions."  (98) However, a girl of this magnitude is not forthcoming.  He finally finds the next-best thing in Valarie Spratlin, and with her starts building his dream.  

On the flip side of the things Turtle Island gives Eustace, it also takes away.  He needs to give all his available time to setting up his camp, to traveling to give presentations, the sort of things that everyone pays attention to in Morning Meeting, but nobody listens to.  When he's not building and presenting, he is making business calls, eating, and sleeping, in order of priority.  It's obviously harrowing, not to mention figuring out his social obligation to Valarie, and whether it is worth his time.