Posted by Ed Kiser on June 08, 2006 at 03:29:37 from 152.163.101.7 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Foreshadowing posted by Pam Adams on June 07, 2006 at 18:06:55:
Don't know if you would want to call it "foreshadowing" or not, but there is quite a bit of unconsious prediction, or setting up for the future, in WD, as Jim teaches various skills to John. "When in doubt get to sea and stay there." So much of what Jim taught John became very much in handy to know when the real crunch came. That good teaching gave John the skills needed to make his actions effective. Of course, at the time of the instructions, no one could guess that this would soon become very important to know.
Even the leisure sail to Beach End Buoy and back set the stage for the more dramatic and traumatic moment when the tide swept them past that buoy on to sea. They had been there once before, they had see it, and understood what it meant to go beyond that point.
Even the Woolworth plate used as a riding light was demonstrated by Jim before the left them. The reefing, using the little handle to crank down the sail was demonstrated and practiced before it was really needed. The charts they needed had been pulled out and explained. The signal flags had also been pulled out and shown to the crew before the actual need to run up any signal for real. Even the lesson as to what had happened to some other poor chap who had run afoul of pirates and so lost his boat taught them that serious lesson to the point that even the taking of a pilot was done with some concerns, if he were to find that only children were aboard, thus the need for "grown-up noises" below deck and for John to be just a ship's boy for a while.
This story is the one that really should be made into a movie.
"You'll be a sailor yet, my son." Magic words from a Father.
Ed Kiser, South Florida