Great+Cay+Reflections


 * Paper One:**

Theodore Taylor’s __The Cay__ is a fantastic survival genre book about a white boy and an old black man stranded on a cay. After being attacked by German navy submarines in Curacao, Philip’s mother decides it’s time to go back to their home town in Norfolk, Virginia. Together, Phillip and his mother board the //Hato// to return home. Unfortunately, halfway throughout the journey, the //Hato// was torpedoed, and Phillip is knocked unconscious and separated from his mother. He wakes up four hours later to find himself on a raft with a cat, and an ugly old black man named Timothy; the very type of person he is prejudiced against. After several days, Phillips head injury causes him to go blind, forcing him to rely on Timothy to survive. They soon find land; and uncharted cay in the Devil’s Mouth, where they live for many months. During the stay on the cay, Timothy teaches Phillip how to survive and Phillip ‘sees’ how he was wrong he was towards Timothy and they become friends.

__The Cay__ is set in the midst of World War II; in the year 1942. The setting of this book starts out in Curacao, an island off the coast of Venezuela. The raft, which Phillip falls from the //Hato//, becomes the setting for a while before Philip and Timothy reach the cay. After washing ashore the cay, the cay then becomes the most important setting of this book. The cay is part of the Devil’s Mouth which is a U-shaped chain of islands near the Caribbean. The cay includes a few natural resources such as: sea grape, palm trees, lobster, fish and coral. I think that the author chose the cay as a setting because it bonds the two characters together. It makes the two characters rely on each other, no matter how different they are or how less they have to survive on.

Phillip Enright, the main character is a white boy of eleven years old. When Phillip woke up four hours after falling of the //Hato//, he finds himself on a raft with the very type of person he is prejudiced against; a black ugly man named Timothy.. Becuase of family influences of racism from his parents, he had also developed a hatred for blacks. He shows this in the book by saying, “My mother was right,” I thought. “They had their place and we had ours. He did not really like me, or he would have taken me along. He was different.” But later on in the book, Phillip discovers the kindness and compassion of the old man and the two people become great friends. Phillip then realizes that people are to be judged from the inside, not by just looking at them.

The author is trying to communicate many messages throughout this book. One message this book communicated was racism. Theodore Taylor tried to explain that no matter what race you are, what religion you are, people are the same. In the book, Timothy says, “Why b’feesh different color, or flower b’different color? I don’t know Phil’eep, but I true tink beneath d’skin is all d’same.” Never giving up and self-esteem was also an important message Theodore Taylor tried to communicate. Philliip always had thought that he would be able to survive and he would be rescued. He never gave up and in the end, he was rescued.

If I had to rate this book, I would probably give it a nine out of a ten. I would rate this book a nine becuase it has qualities of a book that i want to read. I didn't give it a perfect ten becuase I thought that some deatils were missing. Sometimes I would get lost in the middle of the book; I didn't know what the characters were doing. Looking on the good side, I I think what makes this book so good is the vivid description. you can hear the seagulls crying, the waves, wasing ashore, old Timothy talking to you, everything. You feel just as if you were Phillip, feeling your way around the beach, getting mad at stuborn old Timothy, and getting bitten by the moray eel. Most of all, I think the book had a satisfying ending. By reading the concluding sentence, it makes you smile and think back to certain sections of the book. I think that this book would be great for middle schoolers because its like going on a survival journey back in time, its different from other books middle schoolers read. __The Cay__ has certainly been one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time!


 * Paper Two:**

Theodore Taylor’s “The Cay” is a survival story about a boy called Phillip Enright who is on the way to Virginia on the S.S.Hato. He had lived in Curacao for most of his life time and he and his family are prejudiced against black people. Phillip's mother has decided to go back to Virginia on the S.S.Hato when disaster strikes. He is peacefuly sleeping on the ship when they are torpedoed by a German sub. He falls into the water and just then a plank of wood from the ship falls on his head and knocks him out. When he wakens, he is on a small raft with a black man and a cat. The black man claims to have hauled him aboard. A few days later they float ashore on to a cay. They weave mats out of palm fronds and make a small hut. They are ignored by two aircraft flying by and it is when they have lost all hope and think it couldn't get any worse that it does get worse. A huge storm strikes the island. Will they __**//both//**__ be able to survive?

This novel begins during World War II in Curacao. Phillip Enright, an average eleven year old boy, has a lot of problems with his mother. His mother decides that just her and Phillip would move back to Virginia, leaving Phillip's father in Curacao to work. The setting changes to the S.S.Hato which they are sailing back to Virginia on. When the ship is torpedoed the setting subsequently moves to the raft where Timothy, Stew Cat and Phillip are stranded. Phillip is prejudiced so he and Timothy don't get along well at all. At that point all Phillip had for comfort was Stew cat, the captain's cat from the S.S.Hato. After the raft the setting changes again, this time to the cay. This is where the main part of the story takes place. Timothy and Phillip live together on the cay for many months catching fish and langosta to survive. These four settings are are all very unique and are important to the story. Curacao is where Phillip's Mother decides to move back to Virginia, and that is where the whole adventure started. The S.S.Hato is where Phillip fell into the sea when they were torpedoed. The raft is where Phillip was placed on with the black man Timothy and they started out their journey to the cay. And last but not least there is the cay where Timothy and Phillip develop their friendship and live together for over four months.

Phillip Enright's character develops and changes a lot throughout the story. First of all when the story started he was just a kid on the island of Curacao, going to school and playing with friends. He happened to come from a very prejudiced family and they all hated black men. Phillip and Heinrick Van Boven would go down to the dock and watch the black men at work on the ships. The black men sometimes gave Phillip fruit and he quite liked them. It was unfortunate that he had prejudiced parents because otherwise he might not have been so prejudiced. In Curacao the war hadn't broken out __**//yet.//**__ When war did break out Phillip's mother decided to move them back to Virginia. After the ship had been torpedoed he found himself on the raft with Timothy. The second day they spent on the raft Phillip went blind. This was a hard experience for him but he learnt to be strong. When they drifted on to the cay, Phillip was frightened of Timothy and loathed him. However, as Timothy taught Phillip how to survive and Phillip helped Timothy out with getting coconuts and so on, they built up a friendship. This changed Phillip's prejudiced attitude. In this adventure on the cay Phillip changed for the better. He overcame his prejudice and got stronger.

The message of Theodore Taylor's "The Cay" is that it is wrong to be prejudiced and look down on other people just because of their different skin color. Theodore Taylor tried to communicate this by showing that even Phillip who used to very prejudiced could change and become friends with Timothy. This fact is proved in the part where Phillip asks Timothy,

"Are you still black?"

In other words Phillip was confused because he liked Timothy but he didn't realise that he wasn't prejudiced against black people anymore. So as was pointed out above, Theodore Taylor wrote this book to communicate to the reader that it is wrong to have prejudices against other people based on skin color.

This novel deserves a rating of 8~9 out of ten. I liked it a lot because it described the characters, settings and events in great detail. It is a very good book because it is fun to read and it has a meaningful message. This novel is for everyone. Boys and girls and the young and the old. A terrific book!

In this novel I would like to be Timothy because he has a very special experience and then dies a good death in this book. In a friend, I would like them to have a personality like Timothy, because Timothy is serious, hard working and can have fun at the same time.


 * Paper Three:**

__The Cay__ is a story written by Theodore Taylor which depicts two people on opposite sides who were trapped on a deserted cay. The story revolves around a white boy named Philip Enright who was taught to despise the blacks. Another key role is played by a black old man named Timothy. Living in a small town of Willemstad, Phillip was sheltered aboard the S.S. Hato because of his mother's fear of the Germans. During the voyage, the ship was torpedoed and Philip escaped with his life. He woke up in a raft with a black old man on it. They soon landed on a deserted island without water or food. At first Philip and Timothy did not get along with each other but as the story unravels, so did their friendship. But what would happen if Timothy were to die? Would Philip's life come to an end also?

The novel begins in the island of Curacao during World War II. The time setting affects the story greatly. It was a time of war and segregation. Philip and Timothy were then aboard the S.S. Hato which was then bombed by the German U-boats. After drifting in the ocean on a raft, they eventually reached //__the cay__.// Why not put them in a first class hotel in the Big Apple? Well, they wouldn't have to work together. However, in the cay, they must depend on each other. This setting is one of the biggest elements of all.

Philip started as a prejudiced boy. He was engulfed in his beliefs greatly. At first, he does not get along with Timothy. When he became blind, this changed him immensely. Once Philip could not see, he forgot about Timothy's skin color. He then started looking at things through a different perspective. At one point, he changed so much that he asked Timothy if he was still black. It was only then that he realized how blind he was before.

To sum it up, Theodore Taylor is trying to tell his readers that no matter what race, what skin color or whatever differences we have, there is always room for friendship and respect. Everyone should be treated equally. He also depicts how racism can blind you more than anything else and how one can only see day when they can see their brothers, sisters, or their own reflections in the face of someone else.

This story beautifully unravels the tale of a white boy and a black man stranded together on an uninhabited cay. This story has a bit of everyting in it: adventure, exploring, survival, history, and fiction. There is also happiness, tragedy, courage, friendship as well as a great plot involved. All of these factors blended together makes up a perfect recipe for a good novel. It is touching yet filled with humor. I would rate this book 10 out of 10.