Swallows and Amazons

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.

“He was a sailing vessel, a tea-clipper.”

Ransome never uses the word “pretend” in the context of the children’s imaginative games. To do so would be to lessen their spell. For the children, the world of imagination, not the adult world, is the real one. Hence, Roger doesn’t pretend to be a sailing vessel; he is the vessel as he runs back and forth in a field.

“BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN.”

Father’s cryptic telegram grants the Walker children permission to sail to and camp on the island alone. Its meaning has to be unpacked for the younger children, although Mother and John get it at once. As a British naval officer, Father says that the children would be better off drowned than “duffers,” or incompetent sailors. However, since they are not incompetent, they will not drown, and so they may go on their trip. The word “duffers” will recur at various points when the children believe that they have let someone down. This quote subtly alludes to the theme of Adventure as Both Thrill and Risk.

“The island had come to seem one of those places seen from the train that belong to a life in which we shall never take part. And now, suddenly, it was real.”

Wild Cat Island means freedom from the world of adults, a goal so unimaginably wonderful for the Walker children that they haven’t even permitted themselves to visit the island.