Treasure Island - A Mirror of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Childhood?
Often there can be seen many parallels between a writer’s life and experiences and his or her works. A biographical approach to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is not easy, as at first sight the characters don’t have much in common with the author and up to the time the story was written, Stevenson hadn’t visited the West Indies or other exotic places. But there still are possibilities to link Stevenson’s biography with his work.
Robert Louis Stevenson was born on 13th November 1850 as the only child of Thomas Stevenson, a lighthouse engineer, and Margaret Isabella Balfour, a minister’s daughter. From his early childhood on R.L. Stevenson suffered from a poor health. During his long periods of illnesses his parents and his nanny sat by his bedside and told or read out stories to him. His nanny for example used to read out from the Bible, as she was a very religious person and his father even invented stories for him. According to David Daiches, Thomas Stevenson ‘had a romantic imagination, and put himself to sleep nightly with stories of ships, roadside inns, robbers, old sailors, and commercial travellers before the era of steam.’ (David Daiches, Robert Louis Stevenson and his world, p. 8) He entertained his small son with similar stories which certainly had a great effect on the young boy.
R.L. Stevenson was barely six years old when he dictated to his mother ‘A History of Moses’, a mixture of accurately remembered biblical language and a child’s narrative style. Growing he became more and more interested in literature. Because of his frequent sickness his attendance at school became fairly sporadic and in general he was regarded as a rather solitary boy who spent his free time reading and writing, who made up games for himself and who lived very much on his own imagination. He also often accompanied his father to the seaside. This seemed to have a fascinating impact on him and soon he learned to cope with sand and sea.
Maybe Jim Hawkins and his adventures were already part of his imagination at that time. Or maybe he even represented a counterpart, an ideal I, of the sick little boy and reflected his wishes and dreams.
Jim Hawkins is an only child as well yet he is of a completely different social background than the author.
Stevenson then went on to put a scary touch to the story by telling us
Since the emergence of literature, thousands upon thousands of characters have graced our imaginations. From trouble maker Bart Simpson of the celebrated cartoon television series The Simpsons to Mr. Darcy of Jane Austen’s renowned novel Pride and Prejudice, the world has witnessed a plethora of characters in literature. Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, and Billy Collins, distinguished American poet, as well as countless other authors, share the utilization of characters in their literary works. The manner in which these authors use the literary element of characters varies immensely.
The forgotten people of Ocean Island, the Banabans, had their island mined away from under them and had their island taken from them during World War II. They have transformed their culture into a whole new way and continue to live in the hope that one day they can live the way that their ancestors once did. This is the case of many places around the world that have been colonized. Colonization is not beneficial to developing countries because it brings diseases, it overthrows traditions, it upsets resources, and it separates families.
Stevenson was born and grew up in a poor, racially segregated rural. His grandfather was murdered by several teens because they want to steal the television. His neighborhood is inundated with racial discrimination. However, the environment does not affect him, and he is positive and becomes a student at Harvard Law School. As he states in the book, “the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice” (18). Stevenson bent to struggle for racial inequality and to be equitable and fair with one another with determination. Similarly, the more cases Stevenson works for, and these create his goals to be a lawyer who make advantage of the law's ability to help people. Stevenson’s grandmother tells Stevenson, “‘you can’t understand most of the important things from a distance, Bryan. You have to get close” (14). She tells him to close to the questions and find out the answers personally. After Stevenson gets an opportunity in his internship to meet a prisoner, Henry. Stevenson is impressed by Henry's words and deeds, and he gradually understood what his grandmother said. Henry affects
Kerr, Calum A. "Literary Contexts in Novels: Robert Louis Stevenson's 'The Strange Case of Dr.
Stevenson was born in November of 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland. At 17 he enrolled in the town’s university for engineering, but soon found he wanted to be a writer. He met his wife, Fanny, who lived in California. Stevenson ventured over to her and wrote a book about it. He wrote a couple books from his own experience at this point. He then began writing short stories, then children’s books. Then, around 1885, he began to write romances and novels. Stevenson goes on an expedition around the Pacific. This experience inspired many books, and moved him into a darker style of writing. He died in December 1894.
All children and teenagers will discover character traits and qualities that they want to possess from the adults they come into contact with. Jim Hawkins is no different. He uses the attributes he learns from Ben Gunn, Dr. Livesey, and John Silver to help mold him into the man he is becoming.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. "How I Came to Be Such a Student of Our Penny Press." Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: an Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Performance Adaptations, Criticism. New York: Norton, 2003. Print.
The past is a secret many ponder upon. Either born into riches or rags, no one knows the complete truth of the olden days. The modern short story “By the Waters of Babylon” portrays both archetypes of an epic hero and an epic journey through the perspective of the main character, John. Throughout the story, John is on an adventure, hoping to achieve the level of success he believes his father has. But, learns something that contradicts what his relatives tell him all his life. Knowing both the characteristics of an epic hero and journey allows the reader to understand the challenges and growth in the characters journey.
When authors set out to impact the lives of readers, a diverse utilization of literary aspects is often required. It is easy to come across many differences and similarities between literary aspects when one delves into a plethora of works. In the book Life of Pi author Yann Martel harnesses the use of a varied first person point of view in order to accurately portray the sense of panic and urgency in given situations; adversely, in the short story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, a detached third person point of view is taken into account in order to drag the reader along on the drawn-out, suspenseful journey that the families involved had to endure. Despite the difference in narrators amongst Life of Pi and “The Lottery,” the points of view of both of these works are exercised in order to drive the plot of two very effective literary gems.
Thomas Stevenson and Margaret Isabella balfour gave birth to Robert Louis Stevenson on November 13th, 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His Father, Thomas Stevenson’s occupation was in lighthouse design as was many people in the Stevenson family such as his two brothers Alan and David. Thomas’s father, Robert Stevenson was a well known and highly respected civil engineer. Margaret’s family the Balfours can be traced to a specific Alexander Balfour who held land in Inchyra, which is highly notable for many archeological findings and is a famous tourist spot today. Margaret’s father was Lewis Balfour, he was a minister at the church of scotland and her siblings included George and james balfour who were a physician and a marine engineer.
The character of gray does not appear in the movie, but he is in the book.
Stevenson, R. (2009) ‘My first Book: ‘Treasure Island’’, in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Text and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University
When thinking of books that seem to be written specifically for young boys, Treasure Island is a book that comes to many minds. Treasure Island is the epic tale of thrill seeking and adventure. Stevenson’s main character is a small boy, Jim, who gets to go away from his mother and embark on a trip across the ocean. There are sea fearing pirates, sword fight, and bloody killings. These are typically things that interest boys. Stevenson also follows the literary pattern described by Perry Nodelman in his book, The Pleasures of Children’s Literature. He describes that many novels written by men follow a pattern when it comes to the plot of their stories. “There is an unified action that rises toward a climax and then quickly comes to an end” (Nodelman 124). Treasure Island follows this pattern. The novel moves towards the climax of finding the treasure and then ends quickly without too great of detail with how the treasure money is spent or what happens in the character’s lives. In many ways, Treasure Island exemplifies the narrative patterns of a “boy book.”
As boys grow into men they go through a series of changes, leaving them doubting both themselves and their beliefs. One specific author who explores this is Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe. In this publication, Defoe writes about a man who emerges from a series of catastrophes as a symbol of man’s ability to survive the tests of nature. Because of the many hardships that Defoe encountered throughout his life, writing about a man whose thoughts and internal struggles mirrored his own helps to give the publication a sense of realism. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is a fictional narrative that introduces prose fiction and proposes multiple themes that dabbles on various serious topics, such as religion.