Treasure Island — Study Guide
Chapter: “Narrative Continued by the Doctor: End of the First Day’s Fighting”
Themes / Big Ideas
- Leadership, discipline, and rightful authority
- Smollett’s calm command, the log entry, and his refusal to “strike” the flag model lawful order against mutiny. Ties to the book-wide struggle between legitimate authority and pirate rebellion.
- Duty, honor, and class bonds
- Redruth’s steadfast service and the squire’s grief show hierarchical loyalty and mutual obligation. The language (“captain and owner,” “owner’s servants”) underscores the era’s social order, a recurring feature throughout the novel.
- The real cost of adventure
- Redruth’s death and the crew’s ration shortages foreground the human and practical costs of treasure-seeking, a counterweight to the romance of piracy threaded through the book.
- Symbols of civilization vs. piracy
- Raising the British colours, keeping the log, and bringing the Bible into the stockade stand against Silver’s organized piracy—an emblematic conflict of civilization and law versus lawlessness.
- Stoicism, Providence, and moral calculus
- Smollett’s talk of “Providence,” the prayer for Redruth, and the stark remark about “that extra mouth” reveal stoic endurance and hard choices under siege—a recurring moral tension in the story.
- Resourcefulness and survival strategy
- Counting stores, fortifying the stockade, and the tactical reading of cannon fire reflect the pragmatic, maritime know-how that often determines outcomes in the novel.
- Coming-of-age thread (Jim’s trajectory)
- Though Livesey narrates here, the chapter frames concern for Jim’s fate—then his sudden return—highlighting Jim’s growing independence and risk-taking central to the novel’s bildungsroman arc.
Vocabulary
| Word | Part of Speech | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| stockade | noun | A defensive enclosure made of strong posts or stakes. |
| buccaneers | noun | Pirates (especially of the Caribbean) or sea raiders. |
| thicket | noun | A dense growth of shrubs or small trees. |
| priming | noun | The small amount of powder or act of preparing a firearm to fire. |
| cutlass | noun | A short, curved sword commonly used by sailors. |
| mutineers | noun | People who revolt against lawful authority on a ship. |
| boatswain | noun | A ship’s officer in charge of the crew and equipment (pronounced “boh-sun”). |
| palisade | noun | A fence of stakes forming a defensive barrier. |
| blockhouse | noun | A small, fortified building used for defense. |
| volley | noun | The simultaneous discharge of multiple firearms. |
| round-shot | noun | A solid spherical cannonball. |
| cannonade | noun | Sustained, heavy artillery or cannon fire. |
| ricochet | noun | A rebound of a projectile after it hits a surface. |
| ebb | noun | The outgoing phase of the tide; the receding of water. |
| stern-sheets | plural noun | The seating area in the rear (stern) of a small boat. |
| magazine | noun | A storehouse for ammunition and weapons. |
| consort | noun | A ship accompanying another. |
| close-hauled | adjective | Sailing as near to the wind as possible. |
| colours | plural noun | A flag, especially a national or ship’s flag. |
| log-book | noun | The official journal of a ship’s daily events and conditions. |
Quotes to Look For
- “Trelawney is the dead shot. Give him your gun; his own is useless.” (Livesey’s quick, tactical leadership)
- “It was plain from every line of his body that our new hand was worth his salt.” (Gray’s loyalty and competence)
- “He was stone dead—shot through the heart.” (The blunt reality of combat)
- “Be I going, doctor?” — “Tom, my man, you’re going home.” (Redruth’s death scene; duty and consolation)
- “Would that be respectful like, from me to you, squire? … Howsoever, so be it, amen!” (Class deference and forgiveness at the end)
- “Then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand bent and run up the colours.” (Assertion of identity and defiance)
- “Strike my colours! … No, sir, not I.” (Smollett’s refusal to surrender; emblem of lawful resolve)
- “All’s well with him; no fear for a hand that’s been shot down in his duty to captain and owner. It mayn’t be good divinity, but it’s a fact.” (Honor, hierarchy, and practical morality)
- “As for powder and shot, we’ll do. But the rations are short, very short—so short, Dr. Livesey, that we’re perhaps as well without that extra mouth.” (Harsh survival calculus)
- “Ball after ball flew over or fell short … we soon got used to that sort of horse-play and minded it no more than cricket.” (British stoicism and normalization of danger)
- “Silver was in the stern-sheets in command; and every man of them was now provided with a musket from some secret magazine of their own.” (Silver’s organization and threat)
- “Alexander Smollett, master; … being all that is left faithful of the ship’s company …” (The log entry formalizing loyalty and order)
- “Making a large allowance, sir, for all the gifts of Providence, I should say we were pretty close hauled.” (Fate/Providence and nautical realism)
- “Doctor! Squire! Captain! Hullo, Hunter, is that you?” (The voice that resolves the tension and heralds Jim’s return)