Treasure Island: Critical Overview

The University of California Chronicle published the first critical article on Treasure Island in 1936.  The article was entitled "The Real Treasure Island," written by George R. Stewart.  Stewart posits that Stevenson's inspiration for the geography of Treasure Island came largely from California, namely Monterey Peninsula, Silverado, Napa Valley.  An avid fan may go and look upon the very island, which Stevenson had in mind.  Stewart largely disregards the primacy of Stevenson's imaginary, drawn up map in favor of the possibility of the real thing. He takes an entry from Stevenson's journal about the sea surf off the coast of California and points it to a similar passage describing the surf of Treasure Island (207-209).  He compares Spy-Glass and how it "runs up 'sheer from almost every side, and then suddenly cut off at the top like a pedestal to put a statue on" with Mount St. Helena: "No one whose only acquaintance with the mountain was from the southern side could fail to be impressed with the contrast of the steep slopes and apparently level top" (Stewart 210).  Confidently, Stewart says "The greater part of the setting of Treasure Island is thus very definitely drawn from California" (212).  He also brings up the connection between Treasure Island's buried treasure and the California Gold Rush.  For Stewart, the most important thing is proving that Treasure Island is based on an actual place, in fact in America, and conveniently enough, in the state of the university that published his article.

Monterey Bay, California

Kathleen Blake wrote also wrote an article on Treasure Island on the cusp of renewed academic interest in Stevenson's novel.  Very few articles were written about Treasure Island until the 1970s, when there was an exponential increase in scholarship on it.  In "The Sea-Dream:  Peter Pan and Treasure Island," Blake does not concern herself with the physical reality of the island like Stewart.  She puts Treasure Island in the historical context of children's adventure, romance fiction, mentioning as well the contemporary culture surrounding the novel, including the presence of the "penny dreadfuls" (Blake 167).  She spends a length of time writing about the existing culture of adventure and desert island stories, which started with Robinson Crusoe in 1719 (165).  She draws significantly on Stevenson's connections with other authors in the genre and what influences past plots had on both Treasure Island and J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.  She argues that Treasure Island is about a boy who gets to live his dream whereas Peter Pan is about living within a dream and then waking from it.  Of Treasure Island's charm, she says "Treasure Island is the dream come true in the full-bodied glory of verisimilitude, which had belonged to tradition since Crusoe experienced the romance of his island in terms of common sense, providential tally sheet, and the sound use of capital, and which allows Jim Hawkins to dream his island an to go there, returning with real pieces of eight" (167).  The physicality of Jim's dream-like experience is what sets it within the genre.

In 2010, Andrew Loman contributed to the wealth of scholarship on Treasure Island with "The Sea-Cook's Wife: Evocations of Slavery in Treasure Island." He takes the focus away from the children's literary genre or the literary context to ask questions regarding imperialism, slavery, and gender.  His article links Treasure Island within the historical context of the slave trade. Loman is primarily interested in a racial reading of the novel, and throws in some significant feminist reading as well.  He writes in a post-structuralist, post-feminist, and post-modern style.  The issues he brings up are largely connected to the bifurcation of reality and appearance in the novel in terms of morality.  He argues that Treasure Island make subtle, yet frequent, references to the slave trade, perhaps not better shown than in reference to Long John Silver's wife.  Such an interracial marriage is unorthodox in nineteenth-century fiction.  His wife is "a threefold curiosity."  She 1) "deliberately eludes" direct interaction 2) she married to a sailor when bachelorhood is popular, and 3) "she's the only character in the novel that is not Anglo-Saxon or Celtic (Loman 4).  He concludes by adding that "Silver's marriage, alongside the other allusions to Africa, emphasizes the global contexts of Treasure Island's eighteenth century and points to the brutal exploitation inextricably linked to the history of British imperialism" (22).  Loman's article complicates Stevenson's plot with hidden nuances and allusions to expose British imperialism and question the integrity of the empire in an otherwise simple and merely entertaining children's story.

Map of British Imperial Power

Scholarship surrounding Treasure Island has evolved over time.  From an interest in place, scholars have looked at Stevenson's work in regards to contemporary children's literature, its publishing history, and its implied slave culture.  Questions regarding gender and race, imperialism, dreams, and reality have continued to complicate and deepen the academic discourse.  Treasure Island contains a vast wealth of potential that appeals to the contemporary Victorian culture as well as critical academic trends.