47 pages • 1 hour read
S.A. BodeenThe Raft
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
When Robie wakes up the next morning, on the day of the flight, she takes a call from AJ, who is checking in. Not wanting to worry her, and feeling secure in the fact that she will be home soon anyway, Robie lies to AJ, telling her that everything is fine and omitting any mention of the sidewalk attack and her plan to fly home on the cargo plane.
Robie spends the day packing, trying in vain to relax by the pool, and finding a bit of food to eat. In the late afternoon, she goes to the airport.
When she arrives at the airport she describes the loading of the cargo plane bound for Midway: “the loading of the G-1 at Oahu Air Services was pure chaos, people hauling boxes and cartons and barrels out to the plane” (17). She looks for Suzanne, the woman who organizes the loading, hoping to find out if she can board the flight, but the woman is out sick. Instead, Robie asks the pilot, Larry, who recognizes her from previous flights, if she can catch a lift, and he says she can. He also comments on the absence of Suzanne, but then assures Robie that his new copilot, Max, will get her on the manifest. Robie goes and waits in the nearby lounge until it is time for her to get weighed. This is an important step on a cargo plane, because, “the G-1 could only hold 3,800 pounds of cargo and people, because that’s how much it could still fly with if one engine went out” (19).
Exhausted from a sleepless night, she dozes off for a little while she is waiting and is shaken awake by Larry, the pilot, who urges her to get on board. As she boards the flight she meets Max, whom Robie believes to be about twenty-five years old. She notes that although he smiles at her as she boards, his eyes seem sad.
Once the plane is in the air, Robie falls asleep again briefly. When the plane is only about an hour and a half from home, the routine trip takes a turn, and the turbulence becomes very extreme. The chapter ends when Robie says, “I tried not to think about the dark and the water underneath us. Nothing but dark and all that frickin water” (23).
Chapter 5 Summary
Chapter 5 begins with the turbulence getting much worse. Robie says it “felt as if we were in a snow globe that someone just shook and shook and shook” (25). Suddenly, the oxygen masks drop, the overhead bins fall open, and objects rain down around her. Robie says, “I felt an overwhelming need for reassurance, for someone to tell me everything would be okay. That I would be okay. But no one did” (26).
Falling back on her old trick of comparing a difficult thing to a worse difficulty, Robie chastises herself: “Tons of things are worse than this” (26). At that point the plane gets quiet, and it’s a moment before Robie realizes that the quiet is due to the fact that they’ve lost an engine.
Chapter 6 Summary
When Robie realizes the engine is gone, she tries to gauge if she will make it by looking at the cockpit. Both pilots seem to be acting normally. She reassures herself that they only load the G-1 to 3,800 lbs. because that’s the weight that the plane can bear with only one remaining engine.
That’s when Max, the young copilot, leaves his seat. He gets out the yellow inflatable emergency raftand makes Robie put on a flotation device.
Chapter 7 Summary
Max goes back to the cockpit. Robie sits frozen. She says, “The flotation device was still in my lap, but I didn’t even try to put it on. I couldn’t make myself look at it. None of this was real, none of it. Everything was fuzzy. Dull. None of it could possibly be real” (32).
At that point the plane nosedives towards the water. Max reappears from the cockpit, and grabs Robie’s shoulder. He shakes her until she stops screaming and tells her that if they want a chance at survival, they have to get the raft out the window exit, and then inflate it in the water, as it is impossible to inflate in the plane.
Robie hears his words but is too shell-shocked to respond or move. Max slaps her, breaking her trance. He convinces her to put on her life vest. After a few more moments of the plane losing altitude, Max opens the window exit next to Robie. The wind and rain rush into the plane, and then Max throws Robie out the window.
Chapters 4-7 Analysis
These chapters depict the crash. Robie, who fled Honolulu out of fear for her safety, finds herself in a much more dangerous situation, suggesting that we cannot always control our exposure to risk. This lack of control foreshadows the mood of Robie’s helpless time on the raft.
During the crash, Bodeen provides an intimate portrait of Robie’s efforts—and eventual failure—to control her mounting fears as the airplane goes through each phase of the crash. This builds the reader’s sympathies, and also fleshes out Robie’s character as someone who is capable of both bravery and fear.
Max, the copilot who pushes her out of the plane, is introduced, and characterized as a very action-oriented individual. He moves back and forth in the plummeting aircraft, indicating that he is a brave and capable individual. He breaks Robie out of her fearful paralysisand gets her to exit the plane. He does not seem entirely uncomfortable incalamitous situations.
