In the book The Cay, the young boy Phillip grew up in a home that did not accept people of different races. When Phillip has no choice but to turn to a black man, he realizes that he needs to start accepting people of different races. He goes from a boy who cannot accept anyone but people of his kind to a boy who his means of survival is a black man. .
Our culture today, has started to accept people of every nationality, but in the past, accepting people was something very few people could do. Still today, some people cannot understand that a persons skin color has nothing to do with how they are as a person inside. This book was set around 1942, back then, basically everyone was racist. Phillip, as he starts to grow up, realizes that the nationality of someone should not affect how he or she is as a person.
Timothy, the black man in The Cay, is a huge man, who takes care of Phillip. Due to his blindness, Phillip cannot do much himself; he needs the help of someone. Throughout the story, Phillip becomes less and less racist each day. Realizing that if it weren't for Timothy, he"d most likely be dead, Phillip starts to understand Timothy. How Timothy grew up somewhere else, in a different culture, and how it is different from his own. .
The author tries to make the reader appreciate different things about life. Especially how people need to start accepting other people for who they are. They cannot judge a whole race by one person, because there is at least one bad person of all races. People in our culture need to start acknowledging books like this one, and really see what the book means. How it is not just about a white boy who becomes less racist as the days pass by. It is trying to explain things much further past that. .
Therefore, in The Cay, one of the main themes is understanding and acceptance. Which is one of the main problems in society today, not as big as it used to be, but it definitely still is a problem.
