Three Skeleton Key features three men working in a lighthouse. Itchoua, Le Gleo, the unnamed Narrator, are their characters. Three Skeleton Key Island is where they operate the lighthouse. It was named after three convicts who escaped from prison and whose canoe crashed into the island. They eventually succumbed to hunger and thirst.
Itchoua notices a ship heading straight towards the island. He alarms the others. The ship was abandoned. It eventually crashed into rocks. They signalled the ship to turn around and it did. However, they soon discovered that the ship was full of rats. The men assumed that the ship had been abandoned, but they soon realized that the rats on the ship had killed the entire crew. The rats covered the entire island in their swarm. The lighthouse is now full of men. The men are trapped in the lighthouse because the rats became hungry and forced them to climb up to the top level. This attracts attention from the mainland who sends people out to inspect the lighthouse. People arrive and assume that three men have been killed. However, Itchoua sends a Morse Code message through the lighthouse’s lamp. The fireboat was used to kill the rats by spraying water onto the lighthouse. This was the seventh rescue attempt. Le Gleo’s head is now a mess. The fireboat returned on the eighth day with fresh meat in its back. The rats race towards the meat. After giving the rats gasoline, the fireboat makes them eat the remaining rats.
The men can then be saved. Le Gleo was then able to open his mind and was sent back to France. Itchoua died of infection caused by fighting off rats. The narrator returns home to repair the lighthouse.
Characters:
The storyteller
Three Skeleton Keys was his most frightening experience.
Because the pay was very high, he decided to work at Three Skeleton Keys to help save some money before he got married.
It was a great life!
2 years at the keys
Itchoua and Le Gleo helped me to build the lighthouse.
After the horrors of his island experience, he returned to the island and resumed serving.
35-years experience working in lighthouses
After he returned to shore leave at June’s end, his most frightening experience was.
Le Gleo
Frenchman on the age of the narrator
He was able to recover his mind and was sent back home to France. He lived in an institution for the rest of his adult life.
Itchoua
The head keeper and lightkeeper
From the country of Spain
Le Gleo was approximately 10 years younger than the narrator.
Within a week of being bitten by a rat, he died.
Vocabulary:
Provisions: A supply of food or other items that is needed
Maneuver is to maneuver in a controlled and often skillful manner
Get it done quickly!
Riveted means to grab and hold everyone’s attention
Besiegers are people who surround someone aggressively or in an annoying way.
Barge: A large boat with a flat bottom that can be used to transport goods on rivers or canals.
Key: A low-lying island
Navigation and ships: maritime
Brethren: Lay members of a masculine religious order
Regatta is a series or races of boats
Pestilential: This is a potential epidemic disease that could spread.
Diminution: A shift to something smaller/lower
Predominate: have more number, power and status.
Flotilla is a fleet small craft
Phalanx: Any close-knit group or people
Themes:
Notify me when you’re warned.
Even though they thought they would die, their friends believed they would live.
Settings:
Three Skeleton keys
The location of the lighthouse
A jagged rock strip twenty miles from The mainland
Built off Guiana’s coast
150ft in length and 40ft in width – “just large enough to let your legs stretch”
Although the risk of drowning was not as high, the waters surrounding the island were populated by sharks
This story about 3 convicts who fled from jail in a canoe stolen from their prison has earned the company its bad reputation. The key was left behind and the canoe was thrown onto the rock. They were eventually starved and died.
Hidden beneath the surface are treacherous reefs
Mainland
Lighthouse
A tall, gray cylinder that is welded to solid rock using iron rods.
Itchoua and Le Gleo were the two narrators who lived in the Three Skeleton Keys.
120 feet high
Additional info:
George G. Toudouze composed a piece of writing in 1877 that still lives on today in 1972.
Love the ocean?
He wrote a history and adventure novel about the French navy.
Authored dozens of articles and plays on art and travel.
Gustave Toudouze was his father and a well-known writer.
The Three Skeleton keys was the home of the characters for 18 more months before they left for shore.
Cornelius de Witt was named the mastership.
