Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson - Max Sutton (essay date 1994)
Max Sutton (essay date 1994)
SOURCE: "Jim Hawkins and the Faintly Inscribed Reader in Treasure Island," in Cahiers Victoriens and Edouardiens, No. 40, October, 1994, pp. 37-47.
[In the following essay, Sutton examines the tone and style of the narrative voice of Treasure Island. He argues that Stevenson employed confessional techniques through which he "invites the reader to become a friend, a partner in [a] relationship between equals."]
"It takes," says Thoreau, in the noblest and most useful passage I remember to have read by any modern author, "two to speak truth—one to speak and one to hear."
Stevenson, "Truth of Intercourse" (1879)1
Many readers have felt the power of Treasure Island, but no one can quite explain it. Who could account for the effect upon an eight-year-old boy who begged to read...
[The entire page is 4766 words long]
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