The Cay

“I was not frightened, just terribly excited. War was something I’d heard a lot about, but had never seen. The whole world was at war, and now it had come to us in the warm, blue Caribbean.”

At the story’s outset, Phillip is fundamentally still a child. He does not understand the profound dangers and consequences of the war or its potential impact on his own life. This characterization moment sets up Phillip’s growth as the story progresses.

“I guess my mother was homesick for Virginia, where no one talked Dutch, and there was no smell of gas or oil, and there weren’t as many black people around.”

Phillip has grown up in an environment where his mother’s racism goes unquestioned. He has internalized her beliefs about Black people despite having no genuine understanding of the history of race and racism in America and its colonies.

“Just as we were ready to go, there was an explosion and we looked toward the sea. The Empire Tern had vanished in a wall of red flames, and black smoke was beginning to boil into the sky.”

This is the first moment when the consequences of war become real for Phillip. The explosion of the Empire Tern foreshadows what will later happen to Phillip and his mother. Phillip’s previously carefree attitude to the war evaporates in this moment.