Notes

Notes on Treasure Island- B35 Week 4:
Contextual material, genre, implied child reader
Jim Hawkins (1883 children)
Pirates and Long John Silver
  * RC 1719 to 1883, when first book for TI published
  * Lots of similar ideas to that of RC,
  * Middle class is central and earn and spend most money
  * Post-darwinish, most significant difference is crisis of faith when Christian origins are questioned and this novel barely talks about religion
  * Ben gunn is like mock RC and only mentions barely providence, not very worthy of this worldview, providence is replaced by luck and chance, things just happen and u must prove yourself
  * High imperialism and British empire formalized, in RC, he is the one owning island and doesn’t talk about giving the island to brit rule
  * Adventure fiction becomes very popular in this time and is ideological version of empire basically
  * This book actually takes place in late 1754ish and wasn’t set in modern day because there were no pirates and things were more cleaned up at this point
  * They give heros all sorts of values and aspects that make them worthy of empire
  * Other changes (first is religion) another is mass literacy therefore more literature
Genre:
  * Children fiction now exists and is in full swing, TI is now actually written for children, ie Stevenson’s stepson and also writing for a market that already exited, and knew it would make him rich
  * Wrote for boy readers
  * This is a form of Romance genre, not fundamentally realistic basically, realism was considered superior than romance, this is like Locks thought on good helpful stories for children (19th century)
  * Stevenson debated with henry james, who wrote realist books
Henry James:
  * Fiction should be faithful rep of world, and talks about TI, but still failed james’ reality test
  * Stevenson replied and basically said his thoughts were off and is equating boyhood with imagination for adventure and james obvi didn’t...