44 pages • 1 hour read
Marguerite HenryMisty of Chincoteague
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1947A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Live Cargo!”
A Spanish galleon full of valuable ponies travels down the coast of Virginia, bound for Panama. There, the ponies will be sold to the viceroy of Peru, who will use them as pack animals in the gold-mining industry. Although the captain yearns for the gold he will receive in exchange for the ponies, the ship is in trouble. Water supplies are dwindling, and the little hay that remains in the ponies’ stalls is smelly and damp. Suddenly, the wind dies down, and the captain realizes that they are in an area known for “white squalls,” sudden storms that surge after an abrupt period of quiet weather. He calls the crew into action, and they hurry to prepare the ship for a storm while he dreams of Peruvian riches.
Meanwhile, the ponies in the hull begin to panic. The stallion can tell when a storm is coming, and he is desperate to lead the mares out of the belly of the ship and onto high ground. He cries out in anguish and charges at the walls of his stall as he tries to break through. The mares follow his lead.
The storm hits with a sudden jolt, and the ponies are thrown back and forth as the ship rocks violently. The sea becomes a “wildcat,” tearing the ship apart and throwing it around like a small animal. When the ship hits a shoal, the hull rips open and both men and ponies are thrown into the water. Fifteen ponies and the captain emerge from the roiling depths and desperately try to keep their heads above water. Eventually the storm dies down, and the ponies find that they are in water shallow enough to stand. They climb onto the beach of Assateague Island, thousands of miles from the Peruvian mines.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “The Island of Wild Things”
The ponies roll in the sand to dry their fur, enjoying the feeling of being on solid ground. Enticed by smells of unfamiliar plants, they begin to explore the island once they are warm and dry. The stallion leads the mares into the forest, and they eventually reach a marsh of salt grass. They cannot believe their luck when they taste the delicious grass and lespedeza clover, which are better than anything back home in Spain. Delighted by the freedom of the island, they soon forget the misery of the ship. They can frolic in the grass, dig for fresh water in the mud, and live without worry about humans or predators.
As the months go by, the ponies adapt to life on Assateague. They learn to swim in the sea if flies or mosquitos bother them and to crawl to safety if they get trapped in the sticky mud. As winter arrives, their coats become long and wooly, they learn to forage for grass roots under the ice, and they find myrtle leaves that stay fresh all winter. Soon, the ponies give birth to colts and fillies, who in turn grow up and have babies of their own, becoming wilder with each generation. Although humans occasionally try to settle on Assateague, building a church, a lighthouse, and a small village, they eventually abandon the island, leaving it to the ponies, birds, and other wild creatures.
Part 1, Chapters 1-2 Analysis
Part 1 of Misty of Chincoteague differs from the following chapters in both tone and content. The first chapter, confined almost entirely to happenings aboard a Spanish galleon that is about to sink, portrays the human characters as callous and money-hungry, caring about the horses in the belly of the ship only because they will make them rich. The horses, confined to a dark holding area with musty hay and little water, are destined for a hard life of labor hauling gold up and down mountains as pack animals in a Peruvian mine. This initial setting, followed by the violent shipwreck, sets Assateague up to be an unexpected paradise. In reality, Assateague is not an ideal horse environment: There is little food, and the harsh climate means that only the most well adapted Assateague ponies are able to survive. The book, however, portrays it as the perfect place for a horse to live a free life, full of delicious grasses and other plants, beaches to run along, sand to roll in, and only nonthreatening birds as fellow inhabitants.
By opening the book with the legendary tale of the Spanish shipwreck and a brief history of the ponies on Assateague, Henry establishes their place as long-standing residents of the island and sets up the theme of The Natural World Versus the Human-Made World. She uses descriptive, metaphoric language to paint a picture of the terrifying storm that brings the horses to the island: The sea, described as an angry wildcat, tears the ship apart and tosses it against the shore, nearly ripping it in half and throwing everything and everyone aboard into the water. The use of natural imagery to characterize the storm is significant given that the horses survive the wreck while the human crew presumably does not. Although these horses are domesticated, they retain enough wildness to cope with natural forces more adeptly than humans. Later in the book, Grandpa Beebe and the children talk about the shipwreck story as a legend, but the opening chapter presents it as fact. Ultimately, it does not matter if the story is true: It is a fitting metaphor for the ponies themselves—wild, mysterious, and innately connected to the sea.
In the second chapter, Henry describes how the original Assateague herd came to adapt to island life. With one stallion and 15 mares, they form a single family unit with the stallion as the leader and the mares following his every move. This type of patriarchal herd behavior is depicted as the standard for horse populations and contrasts with the Phantom, whose wildness and independence immediately set her apart. The attention Henry pays to the horses’ social behavior also introduces the importance of Family and Community Bonds. To survive their initial time on the island, the horses have to stick together and help each other. As a small group on such an isolated island, they develop a unique way of life, and their identity as Assateague Island ponies becomes important to them. They grow more and more distant from the human world with each passing year, until they bear little physical or psychological resemblance to their ancestors on the Spanish galleon or to the domestic horses on the mainland.
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