Treasure Island: the Journey of Jim Hawkins Essay Example

For the duration of existence, people undergo the physical and mental stages of growing up. During this phase, people establish through their dealings who they actually are in addition to what they are worth. For instance, Treasure Island is an adventure tale, but it is also the story of one boy’s (Jim Hawkins) coming of age. On the outset of the voyage, Jim was a timid adolescent, but by the closing stages, he had matured incredibly. In his novel, Treasure Island, author Robert Louis Stevenson focuses primarily on the journey of main character Jim Hawkins to exemplify the process of growing up and proving oneself. Jim Hawkins’ transformation from a timid, 13-year old boy to a young man began when a sailor by the name of Billy Bones arrived at the Admiral Benbow Inn. Jim wasn’t familiar with Bone’s reputation at the time, although the meeting of Billy Bones did leave a memorable first impression on him. “I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came ploddy to the Inn door, his sea chest following behind him in a hand-baron, a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre cut across one cheek. I remember him looking ‘round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so often afterwards” (Stevenson 1). Soon after his arrival, Bones made the Inn his permanent residence for the time being. “The story begins with the arrival of a mysterious old sailor named Bill Bones at the Admiral Benbow, a quiet seaside Inn operated by Jim’s father. The old sailor establishes himself at the Inn, spending his days watching the sea and his nights singing, drinking, and telling stories in the tavern” (Howes 470). Bone’s stay at the Inn was a change of pace for Jim because he hardly knew anything of the outside world or anybody in it. Little did Bones and the Hawkins family know; trouble was soon to come. Soon after Billy Bones had settled in at the Admiral