Swallows and Amazons

Adventure equates with danger for the young main characters. They have plenty of dangerous situations, beginning with Father’s blithe assumption, via telegram, that the children are skilled enough not to drown while sailing without supervision. John puts two of his younger siblings in danger when he sails the Amazon at night and gets lost. The electric storm that collapses their tents highlights the peril of their independence and the tenuous balance between freedom and safety.

When the children are not in physical danger, they play adventure games involving dangerous situations drawn from stories they have read or heard, especially Treasure Island. After they reach the island, the journey itself is no longer dangerous, so the Blackett girls arrive on the scene with their sailboat and offer to battle. Once this battle is over, they plan a new adventure to conquer Jim Turner’s houseboat and find his stolen manuscript.

The latter quest does not offer danger in and of itself. Even when Titty lies hidden in the Amazon at night, she doesn’t fear the quarreling burglars she overhears. Instead, like all six of the children, when there is no present danger, she makes it up. This inventiveness reflects their need to sustain the thrill of adventure even in ordinary moments. The men are not dangerous locals to her but pirates burying treasure.

Stories of explorers in European history also present rich material for the children’s invention of dangerous situations. Sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is mentioned in the epigraph to Chapter 1; both Francis Drake, a British privateer also of the 16th century, and Christopher Columbus are referenced by Mother; and the children call the unexplored territory south of the island the “Antarctic,” where the South Pole had been reached less than 20 years before the setting of the novel.

In the children’s imaginations, explorers are frequently threatened by nature’s extremes and by encounters with Indigenous peoples. Their language is offensive to modern sensibilities, as the Walkers appear to have absorbed the racism within the concept of the conquering British Empire. This perspective, while reflective of its time, offers an opportunity to discuss the historical context of the novel.

By the end of the 1920s, Britain still held colonies, protectorates, and dominions. The Walker children’s father is absent because he is sailing to Hong Kong, then a British colony. A belief in European superiority led colonizers to consider the Indigenous people they conquered as lesser. The Walker children demonstrate the ignorant attitudes of their time in their view of Indigenous peoples, whom they call “savages.”

The children ascribe to Indigenous people traditions drawn from the history of a variety of colonized cultures, such as cooking enemies over a fire (associated with Fiji’s Indigenous people) and killing people with poisoned arrows (a practice of multiple Indigenous groups around the globe). They add to this generalized form of racism an imitation of the languages from groups of Australia’s Indigenous people, the Aboriginal Australians. Even Mother, who hails from Sydney, joins in this dubious practice with made-up words such as “Burroborromjeeboomding.”

Mothers and daughters all demonstrate nontraditional gender roles in Swallows and Amazons. Both the Walker children and the Blackett children have absent fathers: the Walkers’ is off at sea, while the Blacketts’ is dead. By necessity, the mothers are the heads of the respective households. Mrs. Walker runs the everyday doings at Holly Howe Farm and is always ready to listen to her children and provide them with whatever they need. Mrs. Blackett is pronounced “jolly” when she calls on Mrs. Walker, and not surprisingly, the two women become friends. Their roles as capable, independent women contrast with societal expectations of the time.

Susan embodies dual roles, as she delights in cooking for the crew but is a skilled sailor, second only to John. She is “Mate” of the Swallow, and cooking is the Mate’s job. She readily answers to “Mister Mate” and shows an understanding of growing up and planning for the present and the future.

The Blackett girls are both “tomboys,” in their red caps and trousers. They deliberately engage in dangerous play traditionally associated with boys, such as setting off a firecracker and shooting bows and arrows. Nancy is particularly high-spirited and aspires to be a pirate, complete with a pirate name. Nancy’s determination and leadership challenge gender norms in a playful way. Like Titty, she draws many of her ideas about pirate ships and battles from the novel Treasure Island, including giving her uncle Jim a “Black Spot” (a letter of accusation), capturing his houseboat, and making him walk the plank.

Titty is equally fascinated by pirates and not only introduces the quest for buried treasure but also manages to find one—the stolen box containing Jim’s typewriter and manuscript. Fittingly, her reward is the gift of Jim’s parrot, which the Blackett girls have taught to say, “Pieces of eight.” The expression is a favorite one of the pirate Long John Silver’s parrot in Treasure Island.