The Wager Reader’s Guide

Name: The Wager
Price: 21.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: David Grann
ISBN: 9780307742490

The Wager Reader’s Guide

READERS GUIDE

The questions, discussion topics, and other material that follow are intended to enhance your group’s conversation of acclaimed historian David Grann’s The Wager, a thrilling recounting of a British shipwreck and subsequent mutiny all but forgotten by history, which explores the existence of truth and objectivity in our knowledge of the past even as it sheds light on the resilience of humanity’s will to live when confronted with the harshest of circumstances.

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. Discuss your understanding of the reasons for the Wager’s expedition. How is the War of Jenkins’ Ear defended, and undermined, as a motive in the years that follow the shipwreck as different accounts of the mutiny are brought to light?

2. Compared to today’s technology, the resources available to the crew of the Wager and other similar vessels could be considered primitive. How were they able to achieve such feats of exploration, travel, and military victory? Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this particular ship and maritime technology in general, such as poor sanitation, nutrition, medical care, leadership, etc.

3. Discuss the quality of life among the sailors and officers while at sea, including the reflection that “Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. The man is near you—at your side—you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone” (64). What other losses are heightened at sea?

4. Which members of the crew stood out to you as unsung heroes of the journey? Who surprised you in their assertiveness, or cowardice, once they arrived on the island?

5. How might the men have fared if they had respected their relationship with the Kawésqar? What belief systems and limitations of their physical and mental state contributed to their abuse of this (potentially, limited) life-saving connection?

6. Grann calls in various now-named and documented trauma-induced conditions—the effects of starvation indicated by the Minnesota Starvation Experiment; refeeding syndrome seen in concentration camp survivors during WWII—in describing the extreme behaviors of the men moored on the island. Have you ever witnessed or experienced a situation where your survival was on the line? How did you react? Even if on a smaller scale, could you relate to any of the accounts of the men’s desperation?

7. One of the more extreme acts of survival the men enact is cannibalism—eating the remains of deceased crew members, and contemplating the killing of one for food. Have you heard of other instances of humans being forced to eat other humans for survival? What would you do if you were in that situation?

8. How does Bulkeley set himself up to become the leader of the mutinous crew? Do you think there would have been a shift in power even if Cheap hadn’t shot Cozens?

9. Why was Byron so compelled to remain loyal to Cheap? Discuss the pull of naval law versus personal beliefs on the men’s sense of morality and righteousness, based on what we can glean from their records. As Grann interprets, for Byron: “to play a role in totally deserting his commander—no matter how flawed and tyrannical he was—threatened the romantic image of himself that he had clung to despite the horrors of the voyage” (215).

10. If you were among the survivors of the shipwreck, which side would have supported—defending Cheap or mutiny? Why?

11. Did you agree with the scale of the accusations set against both sides of the Wager’s survivors? Where did the law seem rightfully upheld, and where could there have been more leeway? Discuss how you’ve seen similarly blurry interpretations of the law—martial or otherwise—if your lifetime or in other historical moments.

12. Were you surprised by the outcome of the trial after Cheap et al returned to London? What does this suggest about the British Empire’s priorities at the time—and what other crimes might have been exonerated for convenience’s sake? Consider these interpretations from a historian quoted in the book—“a munity is like a horrible, malignant disease and the chances that the patient will die an agonizing death are so great, that the subject cannot even be mentioned aloud” (199)—and Grann’s analysis—“A munity, especially in times of war, can be so threatening to the established order that it is not even officially recognized as one” (306).

13. Discuss the various accounts of the Wager’s experience as written by Bulkeley and others, along with narratives like Reverend Walter’s (of the Centurion), and the nonexistent narrative of Black seaman John Duck. What do the subjectivities and manipulations behind these accounts suggest about the nature of history? What stories do you know of the past—global, national, familial—that have multiple and/or competing versions?

14. Besides its content, Bulkeley’s published account of the events on the island stood out for its “crisp” and “plain maritime style” reflective of its author’s social position and personality (258). Do you think his confidence in not altering his voice influenced readers’ trust in his evidence, including government officials’? Compare this to some of the reflections we hear from Byron in the book, a noted romantic and a mere boy when he first sets out to sea.

15. In the book’s Epilogue, we learn that Captain Anson is chiefly remembered by history as the “Father of the British Navy.” What other figures do you know from history who have made legitimate contributions to society, worthy of celebration, alongside darker and more malicious behaviors? Who decides which facets of “heroes” or “villains” are remembered?

16. What does Bulkeley’s fate in America suggest about his character? Do you think he would have ventured to the colonies if he hadn’t led the mutiny?

17. Are you aware of other forgotten narratives from history that are now being exhumed and for which restitution is being demanded? How do they compare to the circumstances of this mutiny?

18. Many different groups of people experience enslavement during this time period for economic and political reasons. How did this history expand your understanding of the scope of slavery during the colonial era?

19. “Empires preserve their power with the stories that they tell, but just as critical are the stories they don’t—the dark silences they impose, the pages they tear out,” writes Grann (312). Do you suspect there are holes even in this historical account based on what the Empire silenced at the time?

20. The documentation of the Wager’s trials is admittedly incomplete and full of contradictions and subjectivities. How do you imagine the author of this book going about sorting the “truth” of what happened? Have you ever tried to piece together a narrative—historical, familial, personal—from fragments of memory or documents?