Philip's Relationship In The Caay

In The Cay, Phillip’s character reveals that through many conflicts he developed the act of being accepting, maturity, and gratefulness. He goes from being a negative boy on his island, to becoming positive after spending time with a man named Timothy.

Phillip demonstrated being accepting after experiencing being stuck on the island with Timothy as evidence in the novel when he learned to accept Timothy as a regular human and not treat him differently because he was black. In the beginning, Phillip wasn’t very accepting of Timothy since he was a different race. It started when they first got on the raft and Timothy wouldn’t give him much water, “I began to dislike Timothy (Taylor 36).” He also thought, “Yes, they were different (Taylor 38).”

In the beginning, Phillip thought that because of his disability, he couldn’t work. He wanted Timothy to do everything for him. When he was weaving the maps he said, “Timothy, I’m blind. I can’t see to work…..Didn’t the old man understand? To work, aside from pulling up vines or drawing something in the sand, you must be able to see (Taylor 70).” He doesn’t think that he should do any work just because he was blind. He didn’t want the responsibilities. Later in the book, he begins to take on more responsibilities by learning how to do things on his own. He began to learn how to fish so that he could provide himself with food, “Every day after that I did all the fishing….After the third morning, he let me go out alone on the reef (Taylor 96).” He was beginning to grow independence and was taking on more responsibilities. After Timothy’s death, Phillip realized that he had to be mature and take care of himself. He learned that Timothy couldn’t help him anymore and he had to take on all of the responsibilities of the island. The day after Timothy’s death he found a coconut to eat and made a bed of palm fronds. As he went to sleep he thought, “ I must feed myself and Stew Cat; I must rebuild the hut and build another signal fire down on east beach; then I must spend each day listening for the sound of aircraft (Taylor 114).” He was sorting out what all he had to do in order to stay alive. He developed the trait of maturity from this. He had to be mature to make all these decisions and move on from Timothy’s death in order for him to stay