Less a fully developed character than Philip, Timothy is more a symbolic incarnation, but it is worth noting that he is also less a stereotype per se than an archetype.Īs to whether or not Timothy is to be deemed an example of a creation by author endowed with certain racist elements, that is probably best left to each reader. Thomas and he is a representative of another time-honored-well, maybe not so much honored-literary tradition: the wise old black man.

Timothy obviously has black skin: he is a native islander hailing from St. A strong-back glanc’ offen your ’ead, an’ I harl you board dis raff.” TimothyĪt the time of this dialogue, the speaker is identified by Philip in his narration only as “the Negro.” Soon enough, of course, he introduces himself as Timothy. “You ’ad a mos’ terrible crack on d’ead, bahss. War has a way of impacting people who may be thousands of miles from the closest battlefield and several novels of note use war in the distance as stimulus for a coming-of-age tale like The Cay. With this opening narrative begins another entry into a time-honored sub-genre of fiction: the coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of war. The narrator of this story is Philip Enright and he is not yet even into his teens at the time of the German assault upon the South American coast. It is still early in 1942, barely two months after the United States was pulled into the already-ongoing European conflict when Japanese planes launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The novel commences with the arrival of German submarines off the coast of Venezuela. I remember that on that moonless night in February 1942, they attacked the big Lago oil refinery on Aruba, the sister island west of us. I was asleep on the second floor of our narrow, gabled green house in Willemstad, on the island of Curaçao, the largest of the Dutch islands just off the coast of Venezuela. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Wanting to hear it from Timothy, I asked him why there were different colors of skin, white and black, brown and red, and he laughed back, 'Why b'feesh different color, or flower b'different color? I true don' know, Phill-eep, but I true tink beneath d'skin is all d'same.įirst Line: Like silent, hungry sharks that swim in the darkness of the sea, the German submarines arrived in the middle of the night.These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

Setting: February 1942 on the island of Curacao, Dutch West Indies Genre: historical fiction novel for young adults

Major Awards: 1970 Jane Addams Children's Book Awardīook Themes: Friendship, Overcoming Obstacles, Personal Growth, Race, Blindness Reading Level: Lexile Measure 860L, Scholastic Guided Reading Level V

The Cay by Theodore Taylor