Captain Courageous Essay, Research Paper
This book is about a young boy (Harvey Cheyne) who is the son of an American millionaire who owns several railroads, and lumberyards in the pacific states. A northeastern fishing boat rescues him when he falls into the ocean off of another larger boat on his way to Europe to finish his education. The boat he falls into is called the We?re Here and it is navigated by Disko Troop . Harvey requests that they turn the fishing boat around and take him back to New York. The fishers say how there is no way they can turn the boat around unless the receive a certain payment of around ten dollars, this seems very cheep to Harvey. He reaches in his pocket to pull out his wad of money it is gone and he immediately accuses the fisherman of stealing his money. Now he has to see how it is to live for a little while without a ton of money and he has to do a lot of work to get food and water everynight from the fisherman. He learns all there is to learn about fishing and this in turn leads to a change of heart of Harvey. Harvey eventually is returned to his mother by mistake in the northeast a ship dock. This is the original story of the richer boy who never had to worry about anything and then he was forced to work hard to survive among a group of hardworking fisherman.
This reader found this book to be not of the greatest or best quality of books he has read. The book itself was a little harder to read with all the slang of the fisherman?s literature and the way that they speak is reflected in the way that the book was written in English writing. This reader felt that the book had the same sort of theme of many other books and stories. The rich boy in the book was forced to work hard for the only time in his life, which caused him to eventually turn into a hard worker. This reader also found that the book was not of the easiest, but of the more complicated form to read.
From this book this reader learned that just because a person may seem rich because they have a ton of money they can be completely out of this world and disconnected from the life around them. This reader also learned how the fisherman survive from day to day out on the sea using fish not only for profit but also for the meals that they eat on a daily basis. Throughout
One of the things that this reader did not like about this book was the fact that throughout the book you got the gist of what was going on but did not really feel as if you were inside of the story watching it unfold in front of you. One key thing in this book, which will influence a reader?s view on it immediately on almost the first couple of pages, will be the use of sailor slang. This is not at all slang but the author tries to write the dialogue of the fishermen in sort of a messed up English way to try to show the accent. This in turn throws off the reader in thinking the book is hard to understand.
This reader would not make a strong recommendation for this book, but would not completely put it out on the slaughter block. If a reader is interested in early 20th century lifestyle of the average fisherman. This book would also make a good addition to any collection of sea stories or novels. This reader would recommend that a reader inquiring to read this book would first take a good look over the background of the author and book it’s self.
This reader felt that this book was not a good choice, and was harder to understand and comprehend. This reader would probably not recommend this book as a number one pick. This reader will definitely think twice about reading another book by this author, but that does not mean that another reader would not find the book more interesting if it fits the likes and dislikes of that reader. This book had a story plot of that which made it not only, hard to understand, but sort of a pain for the reader to read over the accented English language. This reader has always like adventurous story plots and this book just did not have the clinching theme that this reader enjoys.
Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling, New American Library inc., 1964, 1981.