Character Relationship Map: Hawaii

Characters

• Abner Hale (played by Max von Sydow) — protagonist

  Abner Hale is a newly ordained missionary who marries Jerusha and serves in Lahaina. He builds a church, baptizes a convert, and suffers permanent lameness after being thrown overboard by Rafer Hoxwor...

• Rafer Hoxworth (played by Richard Harris) — supporting

  Rafer Hoxworth is a whaling captain and Jerusha’s former love. Returning from sea, he reacts angrily to her marriage to Abner and tries to persuade her to leave. He later lures Iliki away, throws Abne...

• Malama Kanakoa (played by Jocelyne LaGarde) — supporting

  Malama Kanakoa is the ruler of Maui and the mother of Keoki. She is married to Kelolo, who is also her biological brother, in accordance with the royal tradition of preserving the bloodline. She studi...

• Reverend Thorn (played by Torin Thatcher) — minor

  Reverend Thorn is a clergyman who introduces Abner to his young niece, Jerusha Bromley. Because Abner must be married before joining the mission, Thorn’s introduction leads directly to the couple’s br...

Canonical Relationships

Family, romantic, and professional connections based on plot evidence.

• Reverend Thorn → Abner Hale (Professional Mentor) — Thorn functions as an ecclesiastical senior who helps prepare Abner for missionary service.

  Reverend Thorn introduces Abner to the woman he is expected to marry before joining the missionary voyage.

Story Dynamics

Alliances, conflicts, and narrative interactions that evolve throughout the story.

• Abner Hale → Malama Kanakoa (Unknown Religious Interlocutor) — Their relationship centers on Abner's missionary pressure and Malama's guarded engagement with Christianity.

  Malama agrees to learn about Christianity, while Abner and the other missionaries insist that she impose restrictions on sailors and native women.

• Abner Hale → Rafer Hoxworth (Conflict Romantic Rival) — Their rivalry over Abner's wife develops into direct and violent hostility.

  Hoxworth discovers that the woman he loves has married Abner, becomes jealous, threatens to kill Abner, and later throws him overboard.

Story Analysis

A missionary's certainty is challenged by cultural conflict, racial exclusion, personal tragedy, and the consequences of imposed belief.

Plot Progression

1. A Mission Across the Sea — A royal appeal brings missionaries toward Hawaii, while Abner must marry before he can serve. The voyage establishes his commitment to the mission.
2. Customs of the Royal House — The missionaries arrive in Lahaina and confront royal traditions they regard as sinful. Abner remains behind to establish a church and begins serving the local population.
3. Faith Meets Resistance — Abner's household rescues an infant, welcomes a first convert, and faces a jealous return from Hoxworth. Religious teaching and personal rivalry increasingly overlap.
4. Riot and Ruin at Sea — Restrictions on sailors trigger a riot and the partial burning of the church. Hoxworth then takes revenge at sea, leaving Abner permanently lame.
5. The Cost of Conversion — Racial exclusion, royal conversion, epidemic disease, and the death of Abner's wife destroy his earlier certainty. He rejects commercial land exploitation and discovers that the rescued infant has sur...