Re: double-checking -- or Captain Flint a failure?

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Posted by Tim Johns on August 19, 1998 at 11:25:42:

In Reply to: Re: double-checking -- or Captain Flint a failure? posted by Colin Havard on August 18, 1998 at 20:29:15:

Surely it is a central aspect of James Turner's character that he was a failure by the usual criteria the world uses to judge success and failure. Towards the end of Peter Duck we read:


He had been to look for treasure a hundred times before, and now, for the first time, he had not had to come home without it.

Peter Duck, however is fantasy, and in Pigeon Post he returns empty-handed from yet another expedition in search of riches. Other worldly failures are the fact that he did not complete a degree at Oxford (see Missee Lee), and the absence of any wife to console him in his old age. The only worldly success Ransome allows him is as an author: see the footnote in Swallowdale from which we learn that Mixed Moss, published in 1930, is, improbably, already in its 8th edition in 1931!

Equally, it is central to Nancy's character that she is clear-eyed in seeing her uncle for who he is and in loving him for all that, just as she understands (and helps us to understand) why her mother should still be so frightened of her aunt Maria, and does her best to protect her. Was AR here showing how he hoped that Tabitha might come to terms with his own 'failure' as husband and father?


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