Figurative Language of The Cay

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE OF THE CAY

Phillip Enright is the protagonist in the novel The Cay.  His character has many flaws based on his prejudice to the things he does not know about and to the cultures of other people.   Unfortunately, Phillip acts, thinks and speaks like most of us would if we were unfamiliar with cultural, physical, and language differences.  Phillip’s major flaw is that he has not had enough experiences in his life with the world around him.  His demands and expectations of other people are unreasonable in that he believes that all black people are different.  This thought is based upon what he has learned from his mother.  Prejudice, in World War II and even now, is a learned behavior.  All men are created equal.  Tragically, this is something Phillip and our world has yet to learn.

Phillip is a boy that isn’t experienced with the world at all yet.  This is demonstrated as he tries to act grown up and suddenly switches to being like a child having a tantrum.  He’s like this because he can’t fend for himself when he is in a difficult situation.  When he sneaks off to Fort Amsterdam he thinks he is being grown up, but when he tries to beat up Timothy he is being like a child.  When he returns to Curacao after his experience on the Cay he is now fully grown up and not a child anymore.  He considers all of his old friends childish and boring so he goes to the Ruyterkade Market and stays around the noisy black people.  On the Cay as the hurricane started Timothy looked over at Phillip when he asked if there were people with rifles Timothy said ‘d, sea… crack like d’ rifle, which is comparing the sea and a rifle because they both can make loud cracks.  This proves that Timothy was perhaps used to hearing a rifle or he has seen war and been shot at.  Those were some of the last words Phillip actually heard Timothy say.