42 pages • 1 hour read
Kazuo IshiguroThe Buried Giant
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A 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 Four, Chapters 15-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Axl, Beatrice and Gawain approach the cairn. Gawain reluctantly confirms that this is the place they were looking for. Gawain spots Wistan coming towards them with Edwin tethered to a rope, much like their own goat. Beatrice leaves the men and walks off alone. Axl watches her and feels that she has hurt him deeply in the past by leaving him alone.
Axl tethers the goat to a stake and asks Gawain if they can use his horse to make their way down the hill, thoughBeatrice does not want to go. Gawain pays no attention and explains to Axl that Axl was once a knight of Arthur, who cursed Arthur to his face, regarding the slaughter of the innocent Saxons.Gawain continues to defend the decisions made by Arthur at the time, while Axl has but a faint hint of that time.
Wistan and Edwin arrive. Axl explains that they’re going to use the goat to kill the dragon. Wistan ties Edwin to the stake with the goat. Gawain eyes Wistan and unsheathes his sword to lean on it. Wistan says, “Now here’s a custom divides Britons from Saxons,” explaining that Saxons would never blunt their blade that way (277). The two mendiscuss the manners of each people.
Edwin ceases the singing he was doing previously and starts shouting that a group of bandits are up on the hill. Axl tells Gawain to reveal that he is actually the protector of the dragon, not the killer. Gawain admits to this. Gawain asks them again to not push on to kill the dragon, but Wistan refuses. Gawain leads them all up the hill, toward the stone pit where the dragon sleeps.
As they ascend, Axl and Beatrice wonder if their quest for their son isn’t a doomed one. Axl asks, “we will search this country for a year and still not find him?” (282). Beatrice shares his fear. Wistan explains that he is on this mission because he is particularly immune to strange spells, such as the dragon’s mist.
They reach the dragon, which lies prone in the pit, but not at all what they imagined: “She was so emaciated she looked more some worm-like reptile accustomed to water that had mistakenly come aground and was in the process of dehydrating” (284). The dragon seems barely alive to them and is only faintly breathing.
Gawain explains that it was a spell cast by Merlin, under orders from Arthur, that caused the dragon to sleep and breathe a mist that caused forgetfulness. Wistan and Gawain debate the merits of this notion. Gawain, for the last time, asks Wistan to retreat, but Wistan will not.
While Axl and Beatrice look on, Wistan and Gawain descend into the pit to do battle. In case he dies, Gawain asks them to look after his horse, while Wistan asks them to look after Edwin. Wistan and Gawain clash, testing one another’s strength. Wistan kills Gawain.
Beatrice pleads to have Gawain buried: “He was the she-dragon’s defender…yet showed us kindness” (291). Wistan agrees to bury Gawain, even though Gawain was a knight of Arthur. Again, Wistan looks strangely at Axl, asking him if it wasn’t Axl who “moved like a wise prince through [Axl’s] village, making men dream of ways to keep innocents from war” (293). Axl says that it likely was him, though he sees himself back then as something of a dreamer.
Axl looks into the pit with dragonand imagines that a small hawthorn bush in the pit was left there by Merlin as a kindness toward the dragon, to keep her company. Wistan then walks over to the sleeping dragon and cuts off her head.
Wistan leaves the pitand warns Axl and Beatrice that with the dragon dead, violence will erupt. He claims that the Saxons will march against the Britons and taking back these lands. Wistan, however, claims to have grown soft toward the Britons, which is why he tried to instill hatred in Edwin toward them. He asks them to untie Edwin and let him come with him.
Chapter 16 Summary
Edwin, still tied up to the stake with the goat, can feel that the dragon, who he still calls “mother,” is dead. “Forgive me mother,” he says, “They tied me. I couldn’t get free” (299). Axl and Beatricearrive to him. They release him. Before he runs up to Wistan, they urge him to remember the kindness they have showed him. Edwin remembers the promise he made to Wistan to hate all Britons, but cannot imagine hating Axl and Beatrice. He then runs off toward Wistan.
Chapter 17 Summary
The final chapter of the novel is from the perspective of a boatman. The boatman sees Axl and Beatrice in the rain and waves them over to the large tree where he is, to take shelter. Once there, Beatrice remembers that their son lives on a cove nearby. The boatman, trying to not pry into their conversation, confirms this to be true—that there is a cove across the water nearby. He tells them that he can take them there, and confirms to them that he is, indeed, a boatman. Beatrice looks happy at the news, but Axl looks scared.
Axl, at first, refuses the boatman’s help, but Beatrice interjects, saying “Hasn’t our son waited long enough? Let this good boatman lead us to the cove” (305). The boatman assures Axl that he will carry her to the shore she seeks. The boatman keeps thinking to himself that he will let them decide the matter on their own.
At the shore, Beatrice spots the island from afar; she wonders how they could ever forget that their son was there. She questions the boatman regarding whether she will be able to cross over to the island with Axl, or if she must go alone. The boatman says Axl and Beatrice’s bond was unusually strong and that “there’s no question” that they will “be permitted to dwell on the island together” (308). Beatrice reminds the boatman that it’s customary for boatmen to question couples to test their bond of love, before deciding. He shrugs off this point, but then says that he will follow the custom and question them individually.
Axl, still frustrated and scared about losing Beatrice, agrees. He walks away while the boatman questions Beatrice. Next, the boatman questions Axl, very gently, about some of the events surrounding the death of their child, who saw them angry with one another, ran away, and later died in a plague. Axl admits to not allowing Beatrice to go visit the grave of their son out of “foolishness and pride” (312). Axl can’t be sure why he had a change of heart regarding the journey buthas realized that it might be that the mist had something to do with it.
When they return, the boatman carries Beatrice to the boat. Axl’s fear comes back. After placing her in the boat, the boatman disallows Axl aboard. He says that he will come back for Axl, once he’s dropped Beatrice off. Axl gets angry, remembering what happened to the dark widow. Beatrice asks the boatman to leave Axl and her to discuss the matter. He agrees.
Beatrice tells Axl that it is for the best and that she trusts this boatman. Axl finally relents and agrees to let her go with the boatman. They embrace one final time. Axl leaves the boat, ignores the calls of the boatman, and wades back to shore.
Part Four, Chapters 15-17 Analysis
In these final chapters, we learn that Gawain is not hunting Querig, but actively working to protect her. We learn, too, that Wistan, though he makes Edwin promise to hate Britons, cannot fully hate them himself. He says, “a part of me turns from the flames of hatred” (297). Edwin carries his wound from the dragon bite, which led him to the dragon, but which is also may never fully heal.
Despite each character’s bad intentions in the novel, Axl and Beatrice remain a source of goodness for the other characters. Whenever the couple confronts a character, they seem to soften the way Wistan, Edwin and Gawain deal with things in these final chapters. Gawain cannot help but lead the couple to Querig due to their kindness and innocence, even thoughhe knows it is contrary to his own desires. In this way, Ishiguro suggests that there is hope for all of these people in the future because of the kindnesses performed to one another here.
The final chapter of the novel wraps up many mysteries. We learn that Beatrice is indeed ill, fatally ill. She is dying, and it seems that both Axl and Beatrice knew this for a while. The boatman ferries the dying to an island of peace and contentment, where they are reunited with loved one. The “dark widows,” who have appeared throughout the novel as tormented, then, are women whose husbands have passed on, and are tormented because they can’t recall their lives together, suggesting that memory plays a vital role in keeping alive—in multiple senses of the word—loved ones.
Axl lets Beatrice go, learning to let her pass on. “Farewell, my one true love,” he says at the very end (317), meaning that, only then, could he really understand the scope of their lives together. In the end, Beatrice goes to the island, and we don’t know whether the boatman will return for Axl, though it seems that Axl knows he will not.
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