Edward Everett Hale's story The Man Without A Country and Rudyard

Edward Everett Hale's story "The Man Without A Country" and Rudyard

Kiplings book Captains Courageous are both fabrications in which the main

characters, Philip Nolan and Harvey Cheyne both go through drastic

changes in both life and attitude. Each learns a different life lesson, but in

a way that is slightly unpleasant.

Philip Nolan, also known as the Man Without a Country, wishes to

never hear of his country again, and his wish is granted. He spends the

last 56 years of his life on the sea, never but once hearing of his country

and, as most of us do at some point, doesn't realize how great a thing he

has until he loses it (pages 27-28). He makes this realization, that his

country, the United States of America, is wonderful and to be respected at

all costs. He becomes the most patriotic man (pages 32-33), along with

some help from a poem, that he begins to read aloud to the sailors during

some free time, about patriotism to a mans home (pages 17-18).

In Captains Courageous, however the rich and snotty, not especially

liked, Harvey Cheyne, son of a multi-millionaire, falls off an ocean liner en

route to Europe. He is found by the schooner "We're Here", where he is

told to do something entirely new to him: work for your money, or don't, and

don't eat. Taking a punch in the nose from Disko Troop (page 18) helps

Harvey to understand that the fishermen are serious in what they say, and

don't believe what he says about his fathers wealth or the life he fell from.

His bloody nose helps to humble him, and he begins the process of

learning how to work for a dollar, which even his wealthy father, Harvey

Cheyne, Sr., agrees is better than anything Harvey can learn at school, or

anywhere else (page 131).

Both Harvey Cheyne and Philip Nolan learn important life lessons,

the hard and sometimes painful way; their arrogant attitudes, and self-