The impending volcanic eruption generates tension and suspense. The reader wonders when the explosion will occur and how the islanders will cope.

The events of the story move from the initial account of the Professor's rescue at sea to a lecture he gives before his beloved Western American Explorers' Club, in which he relates his adventures in flashback. By placing the Professor's fantastic adventures within the framework of the lecture, du Bois makes the events of the story seem more realistic.

The blend of fantasy and realism is an effective literary device. The details of life on Krakatoa are realistic, even though the concept of the isolated settlement is fanciful. The episodes involving the farfetched inventions recall Jonathan Swift's island of Laputa in Gulliver's Travels (1726). Like the narrator of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), the Professor accidentally ends up on a remote island, but in du Bois's...