Ship Captain
A Brief Character Study
By Randy Marr
Kalamazoo Valley Community College
Spring 2007

Character for the Pied Piper Literary World, Ship Captain
I see this Captain as a cannibalistic ruffian.

The seafarer stands at 62 and is very heavy. He wars a dirty, tattered pair of pants and an old tunic top thats in even worse condition. He smells as though he hasnt bathed in weeks, mixed lightly with the scent of the sea. He wears a thick beard that has never been groomed, it looks like a rats nest. As he sees you approach, he smiles, showing that hes lost more than his fair share of teeth over his seaborne career. He wears a bandana over his otherwise mostly bald head. What few scraggly shreds of hair he has left hang loose over his shoulders. Hes kind of like a seafaring ogre trying to disguise himself as a human and hes not pulling it off very well. His gruff exterior isnt just a front to cover a warm, fuzzy human being. Hes really nasty inside and out.

If you ask him if hes seen any of the children from Hamelin Town, hes likely to say that its too dark in the hold to see what hes eating..

For Reflection
Cannibalism who practices this and why? Can you look it up and find out?

Captain 2 sounds more like a pirate than a ship captain! Can you think of a list of pirates and describe each one of them? What are their differences and what are their similarities?

When did the crown heads of Europe condone piracy? Was this a political move, an economical move or what?

What famous pirate had a favorite spot at Ocracoke Island, North Carolina?

In looking at the Pied Piper story, one idea is the children got on a boat to go to Italy on a Childrens Crusade. Could it be possible that the boat was attached by pirates? Did you ever read the book, A Fair Wind In Jamaica? Some children become part of pirate booty in that story.