Pirates Celia Rees for Project, I Writing

¶ … Pirates Celia Rees for project, I writing a magazine-style book review .The review include ... 1.Include a summary, include: genre importance setting, characters, plot.

When it comes to books that present themselves autobiographical, the question in issue is whether or not people show an interest. However, Celia Rees' Pirates! is, what is called, a fictional autobiography. Nancy, the book's protagonist and narrator, is attentive enough to warn us that "what follows" is not just the typical story of a sixteen years old girl, but one that may seem "a little extravagant, to have something of the air of a novel." She is just as careful, mind you, in warning the audience that "this is no fiction" and that the reader should jump to no conclusions until he has read the story through to the end.

This trick of autobiographical fiction often does its work and captures the reader's attention, more so when spiced with the narrator's self acknowledgement and a subtle disclosure on what he is about to witness. And, in Pirates!, the reader should expect two sides of the same story. To disperse this last statement of any ambiguity, let us say that the novel starts off with Nancy, daughter of a rich merchant, drawing back on some the circumstances which led her and Minerva, her slave friend, to undertake the life of pirates. This somewhat large acquaintance with the whereabouts of Nancy's life on land before entering life at sea paints a general picture of slavery in the 1700's. Nancy is at first unaware that her luxurious and carefree life comes at the cost of subdued African people but she is soon met with the reality of facts when her father dies and she is sent to live on the plantation in the West Indies. There, she meets Minerva, a girl her age, and due to a complete turn of events, the two set sail and embark on a series of fantastic and pirate-like adventures. The novel thus is committed to a transformation of setting and the whole action gets more intense as the two girls meet several challenges along the way. Bloodshedding and violence are sprinkled here and there, Nancy and Minerva are submitted to a process of transformation themselves, growing as characters and maturing and, although the ending is somewhat ambiguous, all works out eventually. One would expect a story of pirates, when pirates are two central characters, to be about men. However, Rees surprises the reader with offering a female perspective of what daily life as a pirate represents, although accounting for male pirates in their Golden Age. Rees seeks to empower women by thriving to transform them from mere adolescents into strong, independent women and she does so fully. However, as the plot in the second part of the novel evolves, we see more of that from Minerva than of Nancy. Nevertheless, both of the characters, their decisions and perceptions set the tone in Pirates! As melodramatic and adventurous, on accounts of one's and another's fate. The novel turns from the lurks of predestined fates, Nancy to be forced into marriage and Minerva to be abused and to remain a slave forever, into a story of liberation and independence. The journey theme, literal as well as figurative, has often set writers to ponder on human nature and although Rees' novel is anything but a philosophical treatise, it does present itself as transformative.