Tenth Notebook, Diable Summary and Analysis

In "Dreyfus' Bench," the year is 1941. Papillion is now in Diable, the island from which he hopes to escape though he is warned that it is not possible because of the high seas. He feeds pigs two times each day and is free to do what he wants for the rest of the time. Papillion is thirty-five and knows that the children he fathered by his Indian wives are, by now, eight. Papillion focuses on an escape plan and comes to realize that there is a small horseshoe-shaped place in the rocks where the waves crash in and then rush back out to sea. Papillion believes that he can thrown himself in the sea here, buoyed by a bag of coconuts, and be pulled out to sea. He tries it by throwing coconuts into the waves and...