A High Wind In Jamaica

A High Wind in Jamaica is set in The Caribbean during the mid-1800’s. The book is about a group of children living on a pirate ship, and gives insight into the world that children live in. Over the course of the book, the children do many bad things, without feeling any guilt: Emily murders a man; Rachael drops a marlin spike from the mast almost killing Emily, and Emily condemns the captain and crew that she had come to love to death or deportation without seeming to care at all.

At the beginning of the story Emily is just an ordinary little girl, but as the story continues she begins to feel herself changing. By the end of the story, Emily has gained self-consciousness and thinks of herself not as an ordinary little girl but as “Emily”.

Emily murders a captured Dutch captain, but she doesn’t feel guilty and no one suspects that she did it. She only worries that she might be found out. She didn’t even think that what she did was wrong:

Near the end of the book, Emily is brought to court to testify against the pirates. When asked about the murder of the Dutch captain, she cries “…He was all lying in his own blood…he was awful! He…he died.” Sobbing hysterically, Emily is carried out of the box by her father. “As he stepped down with her she caught sight for the first time of Jonsen and the crew…The terrible look on Jonsen’s face as his eye met hers.” Once she is safely in a cab, “she [becomes] herself with surprising rapidity”.

“She began to talk about all she had seen, just as if it had been a party…” All Emily worries about is whether or not “she said her piece properly”.

Near the end of the book, Captain Jonsen decides to put the children on a steamer to England. Before they are sent to the new ship, he asks them not to tell anyone that he and the crew are pirates. Everyone agrees not to tell, and it seems that all is well. When the children arrive on the steamer, they do not say anything about their stay on the pirate ship. When Emily becomes hysterical a stewardess carries her down to her room. While she is being put to bed, she tells the stewardess about the pirates, breaking her promise to Jonsen, Emily thinks nothing of it, and she feels relieved at having told someone.