Treasure Island

What can be said about this novel? This novel is in the genre of action/adventure but really with all that happens like the death of Jim Hawkins' father, it really becomes a coming of age story. While running off after the death of his father, he is a scared young man who really doesn't have any direction in his life until he meets the pirates who he joins and helps them try to reach Treasure Island. He eventually starts becoming confident and takes charge which really gives the story a positive element for character development. It also leads the reader on a whole set of pirate adventures and plots that makes the reader think Stevenson think that he himself experienced these adventures because of the detail that each event was described.

Another interesting detail I found particularly intriguing was that the pirates die from alcohol one way or another, it really makes for a theme for the entirety of the novel. It is interesting because that is what fuels a pirate adventure, rum and money would be the other, it really makes it seem like candy because if you have too much, something bad happens. The deaths of characters such as Captain Flint due to excessive drinking, and the way that Billy Bones was told not to drink after his stroke but did and dies made me believe that greed ultimately leads to some form of ignorance and then death. There is also a fight between Israel Hands and O'Brien because they were drinking which leads to Jim Hawkins taking back the Hispaniola.

Long John Silver is easily the most interesting of all the characters. Throughout the story he can lie and make up stories and whatnot to get himself out of tight spots. He originally was sort of a mentor to Jim Hawkins and treated him with respect but eventually a dark side is revealed, he leads a mutiny aboard the ship, and eventually leaves with a portion of the treasure. The portrayal of his character I think, really makes for the standard that all pirates are, whether they are in films or in novels. He has been described as having parrot and having a peg leg, which really becomes a iconic image that is often used for any interpretation of pirate media.