Adventure was a very dominant theme throughout Submarine Outlaw, Phillip Roy used many methods throughout to enhance his use of the adventure theme. Language features are one of the prominent methods used: “Alfred popped out of the hatch, the ocean breeze was like a whiff of adventure crawling up his nose.” (Roy, 7552). This simile conveys how Alfred feels adventure and passes on down to the reader, Roy did a great job of making the reader feel like they were really there, part of the adventure. He also used structure features to serve the same purpose. “There was a storm slowly brewing in the distance, the large ship was drawing closer and closer to his submarine.” (Roy, 4635). Roy uses pathetic fallacy that also functions as foreshadowing. A storm is seen as something negative, this negative hints to the reader that the large ship might do something bad.
Roy also created the sense of adventure by making characters overcome their fears, specifically Alfred. “Alfred was only 5 when he was on a sailboat with his parents, suddenly a shark attacked and took down the boat with both of his parents, he was the only one that made it out alive.”(Roy, 9345). The narrator reveals how Alfred has always feared the ocean, then Alfred decides to build a submarine to try and overcome his fear: “Alfred and Ziegfred decided to start construction on the submarine, it wasn’t going to be easy but they were going to do it.”(Roy, 9500) This reveals Alfred starting to overcome his fear, which adds to the sense of adventure in the novel. He overcomes his fears and rides the submarine into the ocean completely on his own. This makes him much more likeable as a character and therefore makes scenes more engaging and suspenseful for the reader.
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