Self-Destruction In Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island

It can be said that the developmental course of a typical child is in no way linear, but rather riddled with breakthroughs and setbacks. Written by Robert Louis Stevenson, “Treasure Island” describes an exaggerated form of rapid, nonlinear development in Jim Hawkins as he is exposed to a rich variety of allegedly developed adults. For Jim, the restrictive nature of each of the adult roles that he attempts to adopt quickly become apparent. He learns to outright reject the more rigid, extremist approaches to adulthood in favor of consolidating for himself a more adaptive variant. Jim undergoes the complex development necessary to achieve this through the integration and application of partitioned rather than whole characteristics exhibited by
This other extreme is represented in the various pirates he encounters. Even Long John Silver at his worst falls into this category, particularly in terms of his potential for violence when he murders Tom in cold blood for refusing to mutiny (Stevenson 41). Furthermore, the pirates are hopelessly caught up in their vices of alcoholism and greed, which inevitably results in Smollett's group gaining the upperhand. Jim witnesses the downfall of the pirates from start to finish, and is able to conclude that their losses were essentially self-inflicted through lack of self-restraint: “At the same time, I observed, around both of them, splashes of dark blood upon the planks and began to feel sure that they had killed each other in their drunken wrath” (Stevenson 71). In contrast, a superficial examination of Dr. Livesay typically leads one to conclude that he is an ideal and safe model for Jim to adopt. Many critics praise his traits of maturity, intelligence, and functioning effectively under pressure. If Jim wholly accepted even Dr. Livesay as the ultimate father figure, he would be losing far too much of himself in the process. Underneath Dr.