After the key is found Jim goes onto say:
“At this triumph we were filled with hope, and hurried upstairs without delay”
This shows that he has less fear than when he meet Blind Pew and only looks ahead at what he needs to do next without lingering, which means that already he is continuing to grow up and mature.
When helping his mother to search the chest his conscience knows that he should take the oilskin packet because even though he does not know what’s inside, to be wrapped in this material it must be to some importance. We later find out when he shows it to Squire Telawney and Doctor Livesey that Jim’s initiative becomes very useful when they discover that what’s in the package is a treasure map.
Jim Hawkins next job was to visit John Silver to ask him to come aboard the ship. He tells us that he was:
“Overjoyed at this opportunity to see some more of the ships and seamen” This sense of adventure which excites him is what you expect from a child of his age as we must also remember that he has never been away from home before. As we also expect, Jim is a little afraid of meeting John Silver for the first time and we know this when he says:
“I plucked up the courage at once, crossed the threshold, and walked right up to the man where he stood,”
The way he tells us how he really feels and at the same time what is going on, helps the reader to be drawn into the story as well as making it believable rather than just dwelling on the good achievements he has made. Therefore at this point within the story we know that he is a little wary of John Silver when Jim firsts meets him however his suspicions soon disappear when Silver goes on to talk about catching Black Dog, another pirate who hasn’t paid for his drink in the inn they were presently at. In fact as Hawkins watched Silver he actually became impressed by how deep and clever he was. Not only this but he fall for the cover up:
“I would have gone bail for the innocence of long John Silver”
We later find out that this was a big mistake as there is another side to Silver and Jim being the central character, finds this out when they are all aboard the ship and on their journey to find Treasure Island.
It starts by Jim innocently wanting an apple and therefore goes below deck to go into the apple barrel to get one. However just as he falls asleep with exhaustion he wakes up again to become into immediate fear and curiosity as he discovers Silver is a pirate with many other seamen on the ship and are cunningly planning to get the treasure as normal, but however on the return journey home kill the honest men (including Jim) so that they can have the treasure themselves. By making the readers heart beat faster as Jim continues to tell us about how Silver wants as apple we learn just how terrified he really is:
“I should have leaped out and run for it, if I had found the strength; but my limbs and heart alike misgave me.”
At this point some may say he regressed and goes back to his childlike behaviour like at the beginning of the story. Nevertheless, I believe however old a man would he too would be just as afraid of Silver and his crew as Jim was.
What ever you think of Jim here within the next chapter he shows that because of his increasing maturity and cleverness he becomes crafty with the information he has just overheard and decides that even though he trusts the doctor the most he will tell Squire Trelawney about Silvers plans. This is probably due to the fact that he is the one in charge and therefore the one who’s most likely to know what to do.
Once they were all down below deck:
“I did as I was bid, and as short as I could make it, I told the whole details of Silvers conversation”
Within this time he suddenly got a lot more responsibility on his shoulders, one reason being that he was treated like a man, as a child would not have been heard. It was also all because of Jim that their lives might be saved. Therefore they asked him to sit down to join them whilst drinking wine and eating raisins, yet another adult activity to do in which at this point not only the three men but also the readers forget that he is only 12-13 years of age.
Nonetheless his age does keep returning in our minds at specific points throughout the adventure for example when the captain says that anyone who wants to, may go upon the Island for the afternoon before returning when they hear the gun shot. Here we see Jim’s true liking for adventure as he:
“Had slipped over the side, curled up in the foresheets of the nearest bout,” we learn that he doesn’t always see danger or he does but his sense of curiosity overrides it because as soon as he reached the island Jim jumps off the boat alone and runs for his life before the others would have had a chance to follow him. Jim hasn’t got a clue where he is going or what to do, as a child he has acted without thinking. At first he thinks of it as an adventure and takes the opportunity to look around:
“I now felt for the first time the joy of exploration. The isle was uninhabited; my shipmates I had left behind, and nothing lived in front of me but dumb brutes and fowls.”
However this excitement terns into great fear as he hears the voices of John Silver and his crew, but again instead turning away from it he feels that his duty is to find out more about what they are saying and therefore creeps towards them to discover that both Tom and Alan were two honest men on board. I say were because they had both just been killed.
It seems to me that Jim Hawkins is stuck between being a child and an adult. This is because his age tells us that he is a child but within a man’s world. Then his attitudes and actions keep changing between the two. When he is reunited with the captain, squire and the doctor it is not long before his huge sense of adventure overrides the other senses and soon he is off alone back to the Hispaniola.
Earlier on within the story Jim found Ben Gunn who had lived on the island for the past three years since he was marooned. Jim used his initiative to sail to their ship using Bens hand made coracle and then to cut the rope of the anchor before getting aboard the ship. At this point the readers begin to admire Jim for his braveness as we know that what he is doing will hopefully help them later on. Nevertheless it was not over yet. After a lot of struggle he manages to get right on board and just when he feels that he is safe Jim realises that Israel Hands wants him dead. Without panicking he knows that both of their interests are the same, as they want the ship to be anchored safely in a sheltered place so until that is done his life is spared. Jim thinks ahead and his cleverness gets him through this however he did admit he was terrified and that he forgot to reload his weapons so as he climbed to the top of the sails whilst reloading them Israel pinned Jim down by the shoulder to the mast using his knife. At this point Jim shoots right back which makes Hands fall dead overboard.
At this point Jim has not only saved his own life but has saved the boat being taken over by pirate which is know hidden away so that the they will not be able to find it. When Jim does shoot Israel Hands he says:
“I scarce can say it was by my own volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious aim.” You would expect a boy of his age to boast about what he done however he simply says that it was nothing amazing. He tells the story as it is and doesn’t linger on about his heroic act, which to be truthful is what it is.
After this he swims back to the shore and finds his way back to the hut they was previously in. Another shock was in store when he finds that it has been taken over by the pirates but by this time it was too late as they had already captured Jim. One thing he has learnt whilst on this adventure was to think for himself and therefore showing that he could do this as well as that he was actually cleverer then the majority of the pirates there he told them why he couldn’t be killed:
“It was I who cut her cable, and it was I that killed the men you had aboard of her, and it was I who brought her where you’ll never see her no more, not one of you.”
From this point onwards Jim Hawkins was the one on top. No one could kill him as that would mean that they would be stranded on the island forever and John Silver the only pirate who had enough brains decided to betray his crew for his own life and turn back into an honest man, for the time being anyway.
This magnificent adventure wouldn’t have ended in the glorious way it did if it wasn’t for the 12-13 year old cabin boy. He may be only a child with an adventurous mind of one but without this none of the honest men on bored the Hispaniola would have survived let alone got the treasure. Because of his increasing maturity, cleverness and initiative he becomes the hero of the tale without once boasting about it and dwelling on his huge achievements. Instead simply telling a story from a young child’s point of view who has had to grow up extremely quickly to not only save his life but to save his mothers and the loyal crews.
