Phillip's Change In The Cay

The novel The Cay has a main character named Phillip that gets stranded on an Island alone with an old man called Timothy. Through the experience that Phillip goes through, his character changes from a little brat to a mature adolescent. In The Cay, Phillip’s character reveals that through many conflicts, he developed gratefulness, love, and independence. One way that Phillip changed was when he demonstrated gratefulness after experiencing being stranded on an island as evidenced in the novel when he was rescued in the end. In the beginning of the story, he was ungrateful to his mother, blaming her for being stuck with Timothy on the boat. The novel states that Phillip blurted out that he wouldn’t be stuck with Timothy if it weren’t for his mother (Taylor 38). He did not understand that his mother was simply trying to protect him from the war. In the middle of the story, Phillip is starting to become grateful when Timothy

In the first part of the story, Phillip was extremely reliant on the people around him, especially when he went blind. In chapter six, we are told,”I went under the water, yelling for him, the came up gasping… I knew how to swim, but I didn’t know which way to go (Taylor 52-53).” It is evident that without Timothy there to rely on, Phillip would not have known where to go. Around to the middle of the story, Phillip is starting to become independent. Phillip says in this part, “I’ll climb the palm now (Taylor 98).” This was a major step towards independence for Phillip. By the end of the story, he was very independent. We are told that in only six days after the storm, Phillip has cleaned the island, and after ten days, he was independent enough to swim for langosta (Taylor 116-121). This shows that he had trusted his blind self enough to be extremely