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Students will be able to summarize the plot of 'Treasure Island' and describe its main characters.

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Students will be able to identify themes and motifs in 'Treasure Island' and explain their significance.

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Students will be able to learn and use new vocabulary from 'Treasure Island' in their writing and discussions.

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What motivates the characters in 'Treasure Island' and how do their actions drive the plot forward?

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Teacher will provide a brief summary of 'Treasure Island', focusing on key plot points and character introductions.

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TREASURE ISLAND BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON // ANIMATED BOOK SUMMARY

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Students will work in small groups to discuss the motivations of different characters. Each group will choose a character and present their findings to the class. Consider using Padlet to present your group's work.

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Students will write a short essay on the theme of adventure in 'Treasure Island'. They should use examples from the text to support their arguments.

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Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Search for Heroic Role Models

Treasure Island is an adventure tale, but it is also the story of one boy's coming of age. At the outset of the novel, Jim is a timid child, but by the end he has matured incredibly. He has outwitted pirates, taken over a ship, and saved innumerable lives. Jim has become an adult in character if not in age. Like any maturing boy, Jim must try out various male role models. Jim's father does not appear to be a significant role model: he passes away early in the novel, and even before that he does not seem to have much effect on Jim's inner life. In fact, Jim scarcely mentions his father in his narrative.

Alternatively, we might expect a local authority figure to act as role model for Jim. Dr. Livesey, for example, has high social status in the community and represents the civilized, rational world. When Jim finds the map, he immediately thinks of Livesey when wondering what he should do with it. It therefore initially seems that Jim looks up to Livesey as a role model. Squire Trelawney, like the doctor, is another symbol of worldly authority. However, while both men are upstanding citizens, they do not captivate Jim's mind or inspire him. They are simply too staid and predictably upstanding.

When the pirates appear, however, Jim begins to pay close attention to their actions, attitudes, and appearance. He describes Silver with an intensity and attention to detail that he does not show for any other character. Soon, Jim is imitating some aspects of Silver's behavior. He acts impulsively and bravely when he sneaks into the pirates' boat in Chapter 13. He even deserts his own captain in Chapter 22, effectively enacting his own mutiny. He sails a pirate's boat out to the anchored ship, kills the pirate Israel Hands, and names himself the new captain of the ship. The pirate side of Jim is so apparent that Silver himself remarks that Jim reminds him of what he was like as a boy, hinting that Jim could grow up to be like Silver.

At the end of the novel, the pirates' influence on Jim's development is clear, and not necessarily detrimental. Jim displays more courage, charisma, and independence than the captain, squire, or doctor. Just as he has not mentioned his father, he does not mention these men at the close of his narrative, an omission that suggests that they have not been important to his development. Instead, Jim pays a touching tribute to Silver and wishes the pirate well. Indeed, Silver has been more instrumental than anyone else in shaping Jim's identity, hopes, and dreams.

The Futility of Desire

Treasure Island explores the satisfaction of desires, and, indeed, the motivation of all the characters is greed: everyone wants the treasure. By the end of the adventure, Jim and the captain's crew have sated their greed, having won the treasure. Stevenson vividly describes how the men haul the gold bars to the ship, as if to underscore the final satisfying achievement. But Stevenson also casts doubt on the possibility of ultimate satisfaction. For the pirates, desire proves futile and goals unattainable, as the treasure map leads them to an empty hole. The empty hole becomes a symbol for the futility of the treasure hunt and for the loss of one's soul in searching for the treasure. When the pirates dig in the ground, it is as if they are digging their own grave. Their greed and irrationality lead only to death, loss, and dissatisfaction.

Similarly, though Ben has possessed the treasure for three months, he is half mad and living in a cave. Such treasure is useless to him if he is alone on an island. Without the structure and rules of a society that places monetary value on gold, the treasure is worthless. Likewise, we see that Jim himself is not satisfied by the gold. He does not mention its value and focuses instead on the coins' nationality and their design. He does not refer to his share of the windfall or to what happens to the treasure when he gets back home. The gold coins elicit nightmares, not dreams of his riches. Jim displays no desire to return for the remaining silver treasure left behind. Unlike other literary adventurers such as Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Odysseus in Homer's The Odyssey, Jim does not want to travel or treasure-hunt endlessly. He has learned that the desires associated with such lifestyles are futile-he will never attain a good life through greed and bloodshed.

The Lack of Adventure in the Modern Age

Stevenson frames his tale of piracy with a number of devices that emphasize the end of the story. He suggests that the tale belongs firmly to the past rather than to the present. Stevenson's decision to set the story in the eighteenth century underscores the fact that the pirate life is outmoded. Stevenson also has Jim begin his narrative in the form of a retrospective chronicle that begins after the adventure is already over. We know from the first sentence that Jim, Squire Trelawney, Smollett, and Livesey have survived as victors. This knowledge lends a tone of gloom to the pirates' first appearance, as we know they are doomed. The pirates die out rapidly over the course of the novel and are continually associated with death, disease, and disappearance. Indeed, the pirate's skeleton found near the treasure site symbolizes the pirates' impending doom.

Stevenson, however, does not glorify the death of piracy and the eradication of criminals. With Jim's final sad farewell to the memory of Silver, in which he says that he will go on no more adventures, Stevenson creates a sort of elegy to the pirate life. Stevenson does not mourn its loss, but he makes us wonder whether the world is better off without the pirates' charisma, charm, and spirit. He challenges the Victorian idea that captains, doctors, and other responsible professional men are the natural leaders of society. Stevenson was critical of stodgy Victorian professionalism throughout his life, and his somewhat romantic portrait of vanished pirates forms a sad tribute to what he feels is missing from the modern world.

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A summary of Themes in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.

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Advanced students can create a modern adaptation of a scene from 'Treasure Island', while students who need more support can work on a detailed character analysis worksheet.

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Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is a recognised literary classic, which remains in print 140 years after its initial publication as a serial in children's magazine Young Folks in 1881. Even if you weren't encouraged/forced to read it at school, there's a 50/50 chance your ideas about pirates came straight out of Stevenson's brain, inspired by the motley bunch he met around the streets of Edinburgh and the stories he heard abroad.
With this in mind, it's unsurprising that Treasure Island has been adapted over 50 times in the century following its release - everyone from the Soviets to the Muppets had a go at producing their own spin on it. Ahead of our show ( premiering in August), we thought it was worth rounding up the adaptations of the classic that you really shouldn't miss. For, um, different reasons.

If I were Jim, I'd feel a bit sketchy about Long John Silver too.
Image (C) Walt Disney Animations 2021, used for educational purposes

1) Treasure Island - Walt Disney Corporation (1950)
This is Disney's first ever fully live action film and the first ever version of the story to be filmed entirely in colour. It was met with acclaim for its photography and production values, and remained very popular with both American and British audiences of the time.

2) Treasure Planet- Walt Disney Animations (2002)
For anyone curious, this was one of the first few films I ever saw in the cinema. It takes the concept of the novel and puts in in space, with a feline captain (played by Emma Thompson) and a robotic Long John Silver (in case you thought what was missing from the original was more lasers). It had...mixed reviews. In fact, it somewhat sunk the studio for several years until Tangled was released, but it's bloomin good fun, especially if you like your classic literature with more space cannons than sense.

Look at that cigar. Your favourite pirate could never.
(C) Fida Cinematografica, used for educational purposes

3) Between God, the Devil and a Winchester - Spaghetti Western (1968)
You have no idea how gutted I am that I can't find out more about this film. All I can determine is that it's Treasure Island with cowboys, made in Italy with lots of famous American actors of the 1960s. I can only assume it's wildly unfaithful to the book and incredibly cool. The title alone earns it a spot on this list.

4) Treasure Island - British/American TV production (1990)
The really fascinating thing about this film is the sheer amount of famous people in it. This was one of the films that gave Christian Bale his start, but also starred Peter Postlethwaite, Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Julian Glover and Charlton Heston as Long John Silver (opinions seemed to wildly diverge on whether this was a good decision). It's faithful to the book to a fault, including the many more gory scenes that occur, but it's worth a watch to see Spartacus, Saruman and Batman stuck on a ship together in a rather budget set. As a bonus for fans of other pirate films, they were sailing round on the Bounty II, the second model made for the rather poorly received Mutiny on the Bounty starring Marlon Brando in 1962 (the ship was later sunk by Hurricane Katrina in 2005).

Honourable mentions:

* Alvin and the Chipmunks had a crack at an adaptation in an episode in 1988
* The Royal National Theatre produced a superb stage adaption in 2014, continuing a tradition of casting Jim Hawkins as a girl (in this case, Patsy Ferran)
* Orson Welles actually made two adaptations, one for radio in 1938 and another on film in 1972
* The Soviet Union made three different adaptations: 1938's "loose" adaptation, a Lithuanian release in 1971 and a three part film in 1982 which was described as almost "entirely faithful" to the novel. If the Soviet versions of JRR Tolkien's works are anything to go by, expect some odd puppets and some even odder dialogue.

5) Muppet Treasure Island - Walt Disney Company, 1996
Well, what else were you expecting? Hot off the success of The Muppet Christmas Carol, the company decided to delve into pirates with remarkable success. Kevin Bishop, Tim Curry, Jennifer Saunders and Billy Connolly join the Muppets for a relatively faithful version of the tale - the only major new additions are an unexpected love story and some scuba diving rats. A must-see, it's what Robert Louise Stevenson would have wanted.

And you thought Tim Curry reached his peak in Rocky Horror.

If you've got to the end of this list and you still need more pirates, tickets are available for our Edinburgh Fringe Show Hunt for Treasure Island (if you're thinking it sounds like Hunt for Red October, you're right but we're cooler and there are more spelling related puzzles, something the original was missing). We'd love to see you there.

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Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is a recognised literary classic, which remains in print 140 years after its initial publication as a serial in children's magazine Young Folks in 1881.

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Teacher will circulate during group discussions and independent practice to provide feedback and assess understanding.

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Students will complete a quiz on 'Treasure Island', covering plot, characters, and themes. This will be used to evaluate their overall understanding of the book.

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Test your knowledge on all of Treasure Island. Perfect prep for Treasure Island quizzes and tests you might have in school.

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Students will participate in a class discussion to reflect on what they learned from 'Treasure Island'. They will share their thoughts on the book's themes and characters.

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Students will write a brief response to the question: 'What is the most important lesson you learned from 'Treasure Island' and why?'

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Read the next two chapters of 'Treasure Island' and note down any unfamiliar vocabulary. Be prepared to discuss in the next class.

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Create a map of the island as described in the book. Label key locations and write a short description for each.