In Captain Jolly’s Do Over, the author often mentions pony rides and life vests in relation to people’s ideas of adventure. Life vests and pony rides are safe, reliable, and not likely to keep people from returning home.Though people seek out adventure to get away for a while, what they really desire is to take a break so that they can add to their experiences and then return to the life they know.
Captain Jolly is no fan of the risk-free adventure, or so he says, and internally rolls his eyes at everyone he sees trying to have that sort of vacation. When he and Kid are on The Do Over, they throw around jokes of the idea of wearing life vests. Captain Jolly throws a life vest to Kid aboard his ship and tells him to put it on, to which Kid replies, “only if you wear the bike helmet” (1606). They acknowledge the stupidity of total safety, even if they are required to wear the vests. …show more content…
Jolly criticizes that the cruise ship tourists experience “no excitement” on their vacations and reasons that saving his boat from being destroyed by a hurricane is so much more thrilling (2018). Unfortunately for him, The Do Over is his pony ride. She is his version of safety and familiar routine, but he feels as if she is his adventure. It is the same with these tourists who want adventure, or as Mike says about the women who come down, “Dey just want someting mo dan de safe, predictable life dey had back home” (2363). This was also Captain Jolly’s reason for moving to the island, but he, and everyone else there, just wanted a different environment with same amount of safety to trick himself into believing he is adventurous. He falls into another routine lifestyle although he is in paradise because he, like every other human being on this planet, wants what is familiar to him. Like he says in the end, “Sometimes [paradise] is just home” (4113). His adventurous life is simply living in a place where he feels the most
Captain Jolly is no fan of the risk-free adventure, or so he says, and internally rolls his eyes at everyone he sees trying to have that sort of vacation. When he and Kid are on The Do Over, they throw around jokes of the idea of wearing life vests. Captain Jolly throws a life vest to Kid aboard his ship and tells him to put it on, to which Kid replies, “only if you wear the bike helmet” (1606). They acknowledge the stupidity of total safety, even if they are required to wear the vests. …show more content…
Jolly criticizes that the cruise ship tourists experience “no excitement” on their vacations and reasons that saving his boat from being destroyed by a hurricane is so much more thrilling (2018). Unfortunately for him, The Do Over is his pony ride. She is his version of safety and familiar routine, but he feels as if she is his adventure. It is the same with these tourists who want adventure, or as Mike says about the women who come down, “Dey just want someting mo dan de safe, predictable life dey had back home” (2363). This was also Captain Jolly’s reason for moving to the island, but he, and everyone else there, just wanted a different environment with same amount of safety to trick himself into believing he is adventurous. He falls into another routine lifestyle although he is in paradise because he, like every other human being on this planet, wants what is familiar to him. Like he says in the end, “Sometimes [paradise] is just home” (4113). His adventurous life is simply living in a place where he feels the most