Marooned!

Jim Hawkins, on a remote desert island, has escaped pirates only to be caught by a shadowy figure among the trees.

1883

A beach on the island of Upolu, one of the two main islands (the other being Savai’i) of Samoa. It was here that Stevenson and his family lived on their 400-acre estate, Vailima, from 1890 to his death in 1894, and Robert was buried on Mount Vaea. ‘Treasure Island’ was however published in 1881, and conceived in Braemar, Scotland; Robert himself was a Scot, born in Edinburgh.

Introduction

Young Jim Hawkins has sailed thousands of miles to a desert island to dig up a king’s ransom in hidden treasure, only to find on arrival that his ship’s crew were all pirates. He has just escaped from them — but now a strange figure emerges from the trees to confront him.

by Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894

“WHO are you?” I asked.

“Ben Gunn,” he answered, and his voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock. “I’m poor Ben Gunn, I am; and I haven’t spoke with a Christian these three years.”

Of all the beggar-men that I had seen or fancied, he was the chief for raggedness. He was clothed with tatters of old ship’s canvas and old sea-cloth, and this extraordinary patchwork was all held together by a system of the most various and incongruous fastenings, brass buttons, bits of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin. About his waist he wore an old brass-buckled leather belt, which was the one thing solid in his whole accoutrement.

“Three years!” I cried. “Were you shipwrecked?”

“Nay, mate,” said he; “marooned.”

by Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894

From ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).

Précis

Jim Hawkins, having eluded the pirate crew that had brought him there, thought he was alone on a desert island. But he was accosted by a man all in rags, who said his name was Ben Gunn, and that he had been marooned there three years before, since when he had not spoken to a single soul.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

Why did Ben Gunn’s voice sound hoarse?

Suggestion

He had not spoken for three years.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

His shipmates left Ben Gunn alone on an island. He survived for three years. He ate oysters and goat’s meat.

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