The Cay Characters

We at Shmoop have to admit that Phillip isn't exactly the most likeable guy out there. OK, let's be blunt: at the start of the novel this kid is a straight-up brat. He's super rude to his mother an...

Timothy is the kind-hearted West Indian man who saves Phillip's life again and again. He pulls him on the raft, rescues him from sharks, and shelters him from the hurricane. As a character, Timothy...

The cast of characters in The Cay is short, so we would be remiss not to mention the beloved Stew Cat. Like Phillip and Timothy, Stew Cat is a refugee from the S.S. Hato, where he belonged to the c...

Okay, we're going to put all of our cards on the table: we think the mom in The Cay is a pretty one-dimensional (or flat) character. All we really know about her is that she's a bit nervous (1.34);...

Phillip's father (like his mother) is kind of a one-dimensional (or flat) character. We know that he's an oil refinery expert who works for Royal Dutch Shell and had to relocate his family to the C...

Henrik van Boven is Phillip's BFF on the island of Curaçao. He's a Dutch kid who doesn't mind hanging with the West Indian people on the island. His country, Phillip tells us, was demolished by th...