Theme and Plot

This summary is on A Knight of the White Cross.By G.A. Henty.

I will start with the plot of the book, move on to the theme and finish with critique and extras. The plot of this book is very concentrated on Gervaise and his life. The plot starts with the main character introduced into challenging times in England. Gervaise is on the losing party in the War of the Roses and eventually, both his Father and Mother die. Gervaise becomes part of the Order of St John and devotes his youth to learning about the Order. The plot points so far said, are the exposition and the start of the rising action. I could spend a whole day with detailing everything, so the information is pretty compressed in this essay. A main part of the story is that because he has no blood relations living, Gervaise can devote his life to becoming a knight of the cross. The rising action is very long and builds up slowly. Gervaise proves himself in many ways but the main point that the story is rising to, is the eventual siege of Rhodes. The climax is hard to spot, as there are many events with which it could be identified but probably the highest point is when Gervaise is protecting the grand master at the time of the siege. The falling action does not take long as the Moslems are destroyed, peace is restored and Gervaise is thanked by the grand master. The resolution is also brief, as Gervaise takes Claudia as his wife and they settle down in Italy. The Resolution is carried on, describing what happened to other major characters and the later siege of Rhodes. 

Now let us move on to theme.

The theme is what the author wants us to learn from the Book and that we have to learn from. Firstly, Gervaise feels sorry for the slaves and when he looks through their perspective, realizes that life is very hard for them. In this sense, Henty is probably trying to teach us that slavery is not good. Henty also is trying to tell us to think through the action and then execute it as Gervaise does, this leads us to two other points, the first is that Gervaise lets down his guard only a bit, only to find he is captured by the Muslims. Another thing is that valour in battle can not always be better than good thinking. The last point of theme that I want to mention is that not all Muslims are bad! And just because they have other beliefs, does not mean we can call them the bad guys. (No offense)

Extra critique. As I said earlier, probably the slavery is not the best thing that was done, as well the execution of Georges, it even said that the Christian leaders had no proof. The corsair evil of plundering is clearly expressed and other things that the pirates did where evil.