The Cay (novel)

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The Cay, by Theodore Taylor
The Cay, by Theodore Taylor

The Cay is a novel (ISBN 0-380-00142-X) written by Theodore Taylor. The story is based on a real incident recounted to Taylor. The novel was published in 1969.

Contents

[edit] The Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

One morning in spring 1942, U-boats from the German Navy attack tankers bringing oil from Lake Maracaibo in nearby Venezuela to Curaçao and its refineries. Life on the island, which had been somewhat idyllic despite the war, begins to change as the U-boat remains offshore and no shipping will come without a naval escort, which the U.S. cannot yet provide. Eleven-year-old Phillip Enright's parents are divided whether to stay on the island or not. His father, an expert in producing aviation gasoline, works at the refinery for Royal Dutch Shell and cannot leave. However, his mother wants to return to her native Virginia.

After the spectacular sinking of a British tanker, his parents decided that Phillip and his mother will leave. Phillip would prefer to stay but has no choice. They risk a passage on a Dutch freighter bound first for Panama and then Miami, even though Phillip's father advises them to fly, Philip's Mother declines because she is scared of flying.

Off the coast of Panama, the freighter is torpedoed, and Phillip is knocked unconscious and separated from his mother by the ship's boom while trying to escape. He wakes up four hours later to find he has been rescued by an old black sailor named Timothy and is sharing a raft with him and Stew Cat, who had belonged to the ship's cook.

Timothy builds a shelter on the raft by using of their clothing and catches flying fish to eat. Since Phillip's mother is prejudiced against black people, and has passed some of those attitudes on to her son, Phillip is wary of Timothy despite his kindness and resents that Timothy treats him like a small child.

After several days, Phillip's head injury causes him to go blind, forcing him to rely on Timothy for his own survival. They eventually find land, an uncharted cay in the dangerous reef area called Devil's Mouth, where they live for many months.

During the stay on the cay, Phillip comes to realize that his prejudice against black people is wrong, and he becomes friends with Timothy. Timothy becomes sick with malaria, and the pair must deal with a hurricane that passes across the island. The storm had torn apart the eighty year old Timothy and slowly but surely Timothy died. However a couple weeks later Phillip is rescued by a boat. Phillip has surgery to his head and when the bandages come off he can see again.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Characters

  • Phillip Enright Jr., the narrator of the book. A boy of eleven years of age who lives on the island of Curaçao with his parents.
  • Henrik van Boven, Phillip's Dutch best friend.
  • Phillip Enright Sr., Phillip's father, a chemical engineer on loan from his company to Shell to assist with the war effort and "increase the production of aviation gas".
  • Grace Enright, Phillip's mother, the one who wanted to go to Virginia to keep away from the war. Disliked the smell of oil in Curaçao.
  • Timothy, an old sailor aboard the Hato, the freighter Phillip and his mother are taking back to the United States who rescues Phillip after the attack. He speaks in a thick West Indian accent and is from the Virgin Islands.
  • Stew Cat, the ship cook's cat, also rescued by Timothy after the Germans sink the Hato. He brings comfort to Phillip when they are going through tough times on the island.

[edit] Awards

Taylor spoke at the 1996 ALAN (The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents) Workshop in Chicago regarding one of his awards:

"In 1970, long before political correctness found itself to the American scene, I received the Jane Addams Peace and Freedom Foundation award for The Cay. Soon after, it was accused of being a racist book. In 1975, finally submitting to great pressure from the Inter-Racial Council on Children's Books and forcing The Cay's removal from many bookshelves for four years, the Jane Addams chairlady requested that I return the award after it had hung on my office wall for five years. I did so within the hour, not dusting it off. I sent it collect."[1]

[edit] Related Media

The book was adapted as 1 hour TV movie in 1974 with Alfred Lutter III as Phillip, James Earl Jones as Timothy and Gretchen Corbett as Phillip's Mother.

In 1993, Taylor published Timothy of the Cay, a book which tells both of Phillip's life after his ordeal and of Timothy's life as a young man.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Blasingame, James; Lori A. Goodson (Fall 1997). "Exploding the Literary Canon" (text of Taylor's speech at the 1996 ALAN Workshop in Chicago). The ALAN Review, Volume 25, Number 1. Virginia Tech - Digital Library & Archives. Retrieved on March 15, 2007.

[edit] Quotes

"Why b' feesh different color, or flower b' different color? I don' know Phill' eep, but I true tink beneath d'skin is all d'same." Timothy

[edit] External links

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