Long John Silver is an old sailor cook, the leader of the pirates, and one of Jim's friends. This dynamic character has only one leg, and is usually accompanied by his parrot, Captain Flint, who hollers "Pieces of Eight, Pieces of Eight." Many critics claim that Long John Silver is the novel's real hero, and not Jim Hawkins - a small boy or Flint's treasure. Evidently, Robert Louis Stevenson agreed with this assessment, as he initially entitled this novel, "The Sea Cook."
The pirate's life at sea was in most cases easier — and surely a lot more fun, for those of a certain turn of mind — than that of navy crewmen or merchant sailors, but it was still hard and dangerous, requiring a young man's energy and fitness. The older pirates of Treasure Island, including Billy Bones, Pew, Tom Morgan, Long John Silver, and perhaps several others, in their fifties at most, had had their day in the late teens and early twenties of the century (Silver says he sailed with Edward England, who died shortly after 1720), and had either spent their shares of the loot taken from ships and towns or, no doubt infrequently in real life, had saved what they could. The chance to recover a large treasure, like the one Billy Bones' map leads to, would have been a dream come true for such men.
Robert Louis Stevenson paints this character much more vividly than any of the "good" or "bad" characters and Long John Silver is not "good" or "bad" but rather a composite of both. Because of his openness about his greediness and mercileness, his pursuit of the gold seems more justified than the greediness and evilness of the "good" characters. Of all the characters painted in Treasure Island, Long John Silver is the most vivid, most remembered, and most picturesque.
Jim Hawkins himself would not have been an unusual boy in the English eighteenth century, although he may seem to the twenty-first-century reader remarkably free from the normal responsibilities of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old. At the same time, an intelligent boy like Jim, with a man like Dr. Livesey to befriend him, may have had the opportunity to read adventure stories and see traveling actors perform. At thirteen or nearly so, he would have been considered a man in all but physical strength, and, given the prospect of going on a voyage like the one Squire Trelawney invites him to join he would likely have jumped at the chance — probably the only one he would get in his lifetime.
The pirate's life at sea was in most cases easier — and surely a lot more fun, for those of a certain turn of mind — than that of navy crewmen or merchant sailors, but it was still hard and dangerous, requiring a young man's energy and fitness. The older pirates of Treasure Island, including Billy Bones, Pew, Tom Morgan, Long John Silver, and perhaps several others, in their fifties at most, had had their day in the late teens and early twenties of the century (Silver says he sailed with Edward England, who died shortly after 1720), and had either spent their shares of the loot taken from ships and towns or, no doubt infrequently in real life, had saved what they could. The chance to recover a large treasure, like the one Billy Bones' map leads to, would have been a dream come true for such men.
Robert Louis Stevenson paints this character much more vividly than any of the "good" or "bad" characters and Long John Silver is not "good" or "bad" but rather a composite of both. Because of his openness about his greediness and mercileness, his pursuit of the gold seems more justified than the greediness and evilness of the "good" characters. Of all the characters painted in Treasure Island, Long John Silver is the most vivid, most remembered, and most picturesque.
Jim Hawkins himself would not have been an unusual boy in the English eighteenth century, although he may seem to the twenty-first-century reader remarkably free from the normal responsibilities of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old. At the same time, an intelligent boy like Jim, with a man like Dr. Livesey to befriend him, may have had the opportunity to read adventure stories and see traveling actors perform. At thirteen or nearly so, he would have been considered a man in all but physical strength, and, given the prospect of going on a voyage like the one Squire Trelawney invites him to join he would likely have jumped at the chance — probably the only one he would get in his lifetime.
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