First published as a serial in the magazine Young Folks between October 1881 and January 1882, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island would be labeled a masterpiece of storytelling by notables including author Henry James.
Stevenson began the story in 1881 while on vacation with his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne. As Lloyd played with a paint box, Stevenson began sketching an island, later writing that the idea for a book appeared to spring from the woods he imagined there, along with “brown faces and bright weapons.” First titled The Sea Cook, the tale developed at an astounding speed as Stevenson wrote a chapter each day for 15 days. He entertained his family by reading each chapter in the evenings. When he returned from vacation, his inspiration again carried him through two frantic weeks of writing to produce a complete manuscript.
While the book’s success as a children’s story caused critics to disregard it as serious literature until the 20th century, they eventually reassessed its format—from its frame as a child’s narrative to its well-drawn, multidimensional characters—valuing Treasure Island for its literary qualities.
Stevenson’s knack at capturing a child’s true voice resulted from his own boyhood memories. As his protagonist, Jim Hawkins, describes bad dreams, Stevenson drew on his own experience as a youth, often ill and bedridden, haunted by vivid nightmares. The description also reflects his influence by Charles Dickens, who reproduced nightmares for his David in David Copperfield (1850) and Pip from Great Expectations (1861).
Always adept at romance novels, Stevenson includes all the elements of adventure, verging on fantasy, expected from that genre. With a call to adventure based on an alluring map, an ocean voyage, Jim’s adult guide figure in the person of the not-altogether-admirable Long John Silver, a treasure, and a sudden maturing on Jim’s part, the book uses the quest format to frame a Bildungsroman and an initiation/coming-of-age tale.
Stevenson goes beyond the plot-driven formula to produce strong characterizations, particularly in his rendering of Long John Silver. At once beastly and caring, shrewd and protective, treacherous and trustworthy, the pirate embodies the idea of conflict present in many humans. Stevenson’s fascination with human nature’s opposing capabilities—one for good, one for evil—would be more thoroughly investigated in his equally popular The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). Some critics feel that Silver represents Dr. Jekyll in an early form.
While Silver’s relationship with Jim changes according to which side of his personality he exercises, Jim does respect him, evidenced by the fact that when he has occasion to escape, he refuses to do so, as he has given Silver his word that he would not. Although undoubtedly a scoundrel, the one-legged Silver remains sympathetic and liked by readers. Readers’ fondness for the pirate is likely why he escapes execution in the story’s conclusion.
The realistic relationship between boy and man, along with the lively descriptions of setting Stevenson rendered with the help of his knowledge from early studies of engineering and surveying, raise the novel above the traditional melodrama often inherent to romance. Vivid scenes that reproduce the island’s topography in minute detail support Stevenson’s study of human nature and man’s ethical ambiguity. Painful decisions, such as abandoning mutineers on the island, must be made for pragmatic reasons, so that what may at first seem immoral is accounted for by logic.
In his writing of Treasure Island, Stevenson produced his first novel, used as a vehicle for his imaginative consideration of the human instinct for survival beyond mere existence. He demands that his characters survive for an ideal higher than themselves, even if, as with Long John Silver, it remains a fleeting experience.
The novel continues to enthrall readers of all ages and has been converted multiple times to screen, film, and stage versions.
Bibliography
Hammond, J. R. A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion. London: MacMillan Press, 1984.
Categories: British Literature, Children's Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis
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