The Cay
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| The Cay | |
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| Author | Theodore Taylor |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Children's novel |
| Publisher | Avon |
| Publication date | 1969 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 105 pp (first edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-380-01003-8 |
The Cay is a children's novel written by Theodore Taylor. The story is based on a real incident recounted to Taylor. The novel was published in 1969.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
One morning in February of 1942, U-boats from the German Navy attack tankers bringing oil from Lake Maracaibo in nearby Venezuela to the island of 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, the Empire Tern, 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, Phillip's mother declines because she is scared of flying.
Off the coast of Panama, the Hato 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.
Phillip has a fierce headache from his blow to the head. 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.
Phillip wakes up on the second day and has difficulty seeing. Timothy believes that this is because he had looked at the sun the day before and orders him into the shelter. Phillip's headache increases, and he develops a high fever. Eventually, his fever breaks and his headache disappears, but he has gone blind and now must rely on Timothy for his own survival.
They eventually find land, on an uncharted cay in the dangerous reef area called Devil's Mouth, where they live for four months. 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. They tie themselves to a palm tree on the island, and after it passes, Phillip discovers that Timothy had positioned himself to take the brunt of the hurricane, shielding him. Timothy dies from his wounds. A few days later, an airplane passes by and Philip is rescued. Afterwards, he is taken into surgery and they cure his blindness.
[edit] Characters
Phillip Enright: An eleven-year-old boy living on the Dutch island of Curaçao with his family during 1942. After a shipwreck, he is separated from his family and is washed ashore on a cay with an old black man, Timothy, and a cat. While on the rescue raft he goes blind. After being rescued from the cay and returning to Curaçao, Phillip spent a lot of time talking to the black people of the island, for he felt close to them. Some of them had known Old Timothy of Charlotte Amalie.
Timothy: An old black man in his 70's. Raised in the town of Charlotte Amalie, he worked as a sailor aboard the SS Hato, which was to ferry people from the Dutch island of Curaçao to the Central American country of Panama before it sank. Timothy washed ashore on a cay with Phillip, after pulling him out of the water after the ship sank.
Mrs. Enright: The protective mother of Phillip Enright. She is prejudiced against the blacks living along with her family on the Dutch island of Curaçao. She wanted to take the ocean liner, the SS Hato, instead of an airplane to get away from the invading Nazis because of her fears of flying. She is separated from Phillip Enright when the SS Hato sank. After Phillip's return from the cay, she no longer wished to leave Curaçao.
Mr. Enright: The smart father of Phillip Enright. He moved his family from Virginia to the Dutch island of Curaçao because of his job at the Royal Dutch Shell. After his work at the Island was done, he flew away from the invading Nazis by airplane and urged his wife to do the same.
Stew Cat: The cat that belonged to the cook of the SS Hato. After it was torpedoed, Stew Cat jumped on the raft Timothy was on. While they were on the cay, Timothy believed Stew Cat was the source of an evil jumbi, despite Phillip's judgement. When Timothy put Stew Cat on the raft, which scared Phillip, he was actually carving a cat out of wood and nails to scare away the jumbi.
Henrik van Boven: A best friend of Phillip Enright on the Dutch island of Curaçao. They both liked to play Pirates until the Nazis invaded in 1942. After Phillip returned from the cay, Henrik was considered very young and if their friendship still existed, it wasn't the same as before.
[edit] Criticism
Although the book delivers a clear anti-racist message, The Cay has been criticized for its stereotypical portrayal of West Indians. The Council on Interracial Books for Children launched significant opposition to the 1974 filming of the story, and Taylor was asked to return his Jane Addams Book Award.[1]
[edit] Awards and nominations
- 1969 Award of the Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People
- 1970 Jane Addams Book Award
- 1970 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
- 1970 Commonwealth Club (of California) Award
- 1971 Kansas William White Award
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."[2]
[edit] Related Media
- The book was adapted as a 1 hour TV movie in 1974 with Alfred Lutter III as Phillip, James Earl Jones as Timothy and Gretchen Corbett as Phillip's Mother.[3]
- 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
- ^ Beryle Banfield, "Commitment to change: the Council on Interracial Books for Children and the world of children's books," African American Review, Vol. 32-1, 1998
- ^ 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 2007-03-15.
- ^ The Cay (1974) at IMDB
