After finally scrubbing the entire deck of the ship I was on my way to reporting to Captain Blewit when suddenly a loud “BOOM” disturbed the silence, Andrew came running out of the cabin, “What in the world just happened?” he screamed as the mast came toppling down and the man on lookout duty crashed on to the cabin and was followed by the mast. “Pirates?!” he whispered and his face turned pale as he sighted the enormous ship approaching. A fire had just started spreading on the deck, which I rushed to extinguish while cannons fired away. The entire crew was in panic and so only realised that Captain Blewit was missing until they spotted a boat rowing off into the distance, “so the coward abandons his crew” exclaimed Andrew.
We reached the island before the ship sank; the few remaining survivors dispersed and sprinted to hide in the woods. After Andrew and I had found a good hiding place and settled down I noticed that Andrew had become restless, I asked him what was the matter, he told me that he was once part of the pirate crew which attacked us today and that the crew had a map of this island which had an X mark on it, crescent island he told me was the name of this island. “We could go home rich men Johnny,” he told me.
Andrew led me to a cave one the east side of the island, “if I remember correctly the treasure was buried underneath this pool”, he explained to me that his ex-Captain, who is known as “The Red Death” hid it here so the government couldn’t prove he stole from the state treasury. “If we want to recover the treasure before the pirates arrive we need to hurry up” said Andrew. We dug hard for some time before we came across a wooden chest. Once we opened it I could not believe my eyes, the chest was full of silver and gold as well as rubies and diamonds. We were on our way out of the cave with sacks full of treasure when we heard the click of a pistol followed by a deep breath, a gun was pointed at Andrew’s head, “hand it over nice and slow” the voice of Captain Blewit commanded. Andrew slowly and reluctantly handed over his bag, “you do know that this treasure belongs to “The Red Death”, don’t you?” Blewit replied, “The blame will lie on you”. He took the sack from Andrew and pointed the gun at me, “hand it over,” he snarled. Andrew stealthily edged behind him; Blewit sensed this movement and turned around firing a bullet at Andrew, missing, before Blewit could react Andrew struck him on the head, knocking him out cold.
With that we left one sack by his body to fool the pirates into thinking that Blewit stole the treasure and to prevent them from pursuing us. We returned to England via a passing ship whose attention we attracted by lighting a fire. With that we divided the treasure in two and lived the rest of our days in comfort and happiness as rich men.
Commentary for creative reading
The creative reading piece, “Crescent Island” is from the pirate genre, being influenced by the English literary classic “Treasure Island”. A young sailor, Jim Hawkins, narrates the book “Treasure Island” while in “Crescent Island” the narrator is also a young sailor whose first name is Johnny. The phonetic effect of the title “Crescent Island” vaguely resembles that of “Treasure Island” and so the reader can immediately make a connection between these two texts using intertextuality to identify linking qualities.
The short story “Crescent Island” is written in the first person and in turn two types of imagery are used, visual and auditory as in “the wind blew wildly” which uses alliteration to emphasise the point of bad weather, this would also enable “Crescent Island” to effectively absorb the reader into visualising and hearing the event when read aloud due to powerful visual and auditory imagery. Onomatopoeia is used in addition to imagery to create a sense of immediacy by allowing the reader to hear the sound just as the characters heard it.
Characters are created in “Crescent Island” by description as when the character of “The Red Death” is introduced his character is unfolded to the reader gradually through sequencing of information. A litany of detail presents the character of “The Red Death” as formidable due to him being “enormous”. His “red cloak” shows the reader that he is dangerous as it conjures an image of blood as red is symbolically associated with menace. His “Iron hook” connects him as a pirate as having an “Iron hook” on their hand is a traditional feature of pirates in the pirate genre. Character revelation is also created by the use of direct speech as Andrew’s character of hot-headedness and daring is introduced by the use of direct speech as when he says to Johnny, “What are you sleeping for? You clumsy oaf!” as he uses the interrogative and does not wait for a reply before rushing to conclusions and delivering an insult.
The story of “Crescent Island” also features all the typical features of a story from the pirate genre such as pirates, in the form of “The Red Death’s” pirate crew. Ships are a feature from the pirate genre, in “Crescent Island” ships such as “Captain Blewits” ship and “The Red Deaths” ship sail the seas. Islands with buried treasure are also an important feature of a story from the pirate genre; especially one influenced by “Treasure Island”, this treasure is normally dug up by the end of the tale, as is the case in “Crescent Island”. Nomenclature is an important aspect of “Crescent Island” as an example Captain Blewit’s name implies his failure as a captain as Blewit resembles a colloquial term for failure suggesting that this character is a failed one, Blewit did indeed fail in every respect as he first abandoned his crew due to cowardice and then attempted to steal from them.
The story of “Crescent Island” was aimed at delivering a short but satisfying story, which would entertain the reader as well as a story that could immediately be associated with the pirate genre, especially infamous stories from this genre such as “Treasure Island”. This was achieved by adopting many of the features of books from the pirate genre. The pirate genre is a timeless genre, a modern pirate book will be very similar to one from the nineteenth century as the image of pirates has changed very little in the last two-hundred years or so, that is the image of lawless and vicious criminals who nevertheless experience great adventure and romance and in turn gain vast amounts of riches.
This commentary has given me more experience in exploring as well as commenting on texts, it has also improved my ability to identify certain features of a certain genre and to comment fully on the style, narrative, the type’s of imagery used and character development.
