Waqar Aziz - -
“What is it like to be a child in the Fox family?”
The Mosquito Coast is about a family whose father is an eccentric inventor, fed up with the trials of modern civilisation, so they leave America for a new life on the Mosquito Coast. This is where Allie Fox took the perfect world from his family. This is because he hates everything to do about modern society.
At the beginning of the story, we see that the children are isolated from normal society because of their father. Allie Fox hates T.V, school and thing that normal children do; because of this his children have to suffer. Secretly the children want to do what normal children do, but are too afraid of their father, “Secretly, I wanted to go to school.”
Because of this situation Charlie feels glad that they are going away where no one will realise that their lives aren’t normal. The children have no choice but to do what their father says. Also they trust him and are increasingly dependant on him, especially once they leave America. Charlie realises that without their father, they are lost, “If he dies, I thought, we are lost.”
I think that Allie is not a good role model for his children as he always puts himself first. He always has to prove a point, even if this means putting his family at risk. When Charlie climbs the kingpost, which he doesn’t want to do, he is caught by the captin. The captin blames father, but father doesn’t care. He was prepared to put his children in danger to show he was right. Allie is really a bully towards his children and the children suffer for his mistakes. He blames Charlie when the captin of the ‘Unicorn’ shouted at him, “If you had climbed a little faster he wouldn’t have seen you.” He makes no apology for the danger he put, Charlie through.
Even though Allie takes the children away from America, the children find a place which they call The Acre. When Allie is away, here they can do what their father hates like playing with pretend money in a ‘shop’ and singing hymns. Here they feel happy and feel they can make up for everything they missed out on in Massachusetts. They were happy in The Acre because their father did not know about it, “This made up for everything we never had in Massachusetts.”
The children feel happier with their mother because mother treats them like children, while father treats them like adults and make them work like slaves, Charlie works like a grown man. When Allie is bringing ice to some Indians, we see that Allie takes out his anger on the children. Here he takes his anger out on Jerry and this is the point where Jerry starts to loose trust in him. The two girls, especially clover, no matter what Allie does, they still love and trust him. When Allie lies about the Indians being amazed, Charlie feels lonely and sad, and feels sickened and separated. Charlie is relieved when Allie tells the truth to mother, “So he did not lie after all.”
