The Cay

1. The Cay Reading PowerPoint 6th Grade Reading Hour 4 2/2/10 Final Project

2. Themes in this book • Survival • Danger • Prejudice • Superstition • Hope • Life • War • Maturity • Trust • Life-Death

3. Theme-beginning The theme in the beginning of this book is happiness because Phillip is on the island and he is happy with the island and doesn’t want to leave. He is happy because friends are there and he can run around them, especially Henrik. They like to play games like pirates. He is happy in this book until his Mother and Father start arguing about staying or leaving the island. There is a war going on, and it may be dangerous for them to stay. When they decide that Phillip and his Mother are leaving, he gets even more depressed.

4. Theme middle Theme-middle The theme in the middle of this book is survival. It is survival because they have to survive on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Another reason it is survival is because Phillip has to survive until they get rescued or until they get to land with a stranger who is black. He has only known black people as people who work at bad jobs, so it is very foreign to him to talk and interact with a black person. The only shelter they have is made out of their clothes. The only food they have is the food that the ship supplied in the raft. They have to rely on each other to survive, which is sometimes hard for Phillip and Timothy.

5. Theme-end The theme in the end of this book is relief because when he hears the second plane, it flies really low. The plane radios a destroyer near the Devil’s Mouth and they send a small ship to go see if it is just another Native fisherman or someone lost at sea. Phillip is relieved because he gets to see his Mother and Father again, and then after 3 surgeries he can see again--he just has to wear glasses forever. He is relieved to be rescued from the cay, but he will miss Timothy, who has become his friend.

6. Main Characters • Phillip Enright Jr.-Phillip who gets stuck on a raft with Timothy • Phillip Enright Sr.-Phillip’s Father who wants to stay on the island • Grace Enright- Phillip's Mother who wants to go back to Norfolk • Timothy-The African-American who saved Phillip. • Stew Cat-The cook’s cat that Timothy found • Henrik Von Boven- Phillip’s best friend on the island

7. Phillip trait 1 One of Phillip’s traits is prejudice. He shows prejudice because his Mother doesn’t like black people and she likes Norfolk more than Willemstad. So he grew up with his Mother telling him that he shouldn’t be around black people because they were different and that they shouldn’t live with the whites. An example of when he shows his prejudice is when he refuses to call Timothy a mister because he is black, on pg 35, paragraph 5. He refuses to call Timothy a mister because he is prejudiced and thinks it would be wrong to do it. Phillip also refuses to do what Timothy asks him at first because he does not want to take orders from a black man, even though Timothy is trying to help them survive.

8. Phillip trait 2 Phillip’s second trait is worry, because he was worried about going on the boat and getting torpedoed, also his dad getting hurt at the oil factory. The Germans were bombing oil factories so that the Americans and Germany’s other enemies didn’t have any oil to fuel their ships and planes. He is also worried about being on a small raft with a big black man that he doesn’t even know, and doesn’t appreciate that Timothy saved his life. While he and Timothy are on the island Phillip is worried that he will never be able to see again which is a good thing to be worried about. Being blind forever would definitely change his life.

9. To Dr. King’s Dream To Dr. King’s dream, which can only come true if the very young know and understand.

10. Epilogue (Phillip—10 yrs. later) I went back to the island because I wanted to see if it was still there and if Timothy’s grave was still there. When I got there, Timothy’s grave was still there, but you could barely see any of it. It was covered with sand and the wood had eroded away. I dug it up and Timothy’s skeleton was still there, so I made a new and better grave. I moved to the inhabited island nearest to the cay and I live there now. Since I live nearby, I go once a week to check on Timothy’s grave. Stew Cat is still alive but is very old. (He is my pet). My father died in a fire at the oil factory 3 years ago, and my mother still lives on Curacao and I go visit her five times a year. Every time I go back to the island, it makes me think that I used to be prejudiced, but Timothy made me realize that everyone is or should be equal.

11. Today is the first time I went swimming since I was “living” on the cay and it felt awesome. I even saw some of the same kinds of fish while I was swimming there. But the best part was when I found the fishing hole that Timothy and I fished in for food. When I was done, I went up on the hill exactly where I thought the hut was and just sat there and thought for a long time. I thought of what I might’ve looked while I was on the cay. I imagined being in the hut with Timothy and Stew Cat. I swam back to the boat that I took out to the cay and while I was swimming, I found a loose piece of coral and took it as a souvenir.

12. I go back to the cay almost ten to twenty times a month just because it is a huge part of my life and I spent so much time there and I have so many memories of being there. I wish that I could forgive myself for treating Timothy badly when I first met him, but I don’t think that I ever will. He is the reason I stayed alive on the island and he sacrificed his life to save mine; he sat out the hurricane in front of me, letting all of the sand, wind, and rain hit him, and it wounded him so much that it killed him. After he died and I was on the cay alone, I felt badly because I was so mean to him. I had never known a black person before, and never knew what they were like until then. I guess he valued life as much as any white person.

13. Whenever I return to the cay, I do the daily chores Timothy and I had to do. But each time I did it before, I did it with my eyes closed, so that is how I do it now because that is how I am used to doing it. The langosta there are delicious--I take at least two or three home with me every time I do the daily chores at the cay. Whenever I see a black person, I respect them and people look at me funny and wonder why I am doing that. Well if they were me, they would know, and they would know that they are missing out on knowing wonderful people if they are prejudiced against certain skin colors.