Treasure Island

by

Robert Louis Stevenson

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Themes and Colors
Fortune and Greed Theme Icon
Father Figures and “Becoming a Man” Theme Icon
Deception, Secrecy, and Trust Theme Icon
Courage, Adventure, and Pragmatism Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Treasure Island, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Deception, Secrecy, and Trust Theme Icon

From the very beginning of Treasure Island, the reader is thrust into a realm of valuable secrets, conniving plots, and betrayal. Jim is remarkably successful at navigating this world of deception. From concealing himself with his mother beside the road while pirates ransack the Admiral Benbow to hiding in an apple barrel and spying on Long John Silver as he spins plans for mutiny, Jim often gains knowledge by spying and overhearing. We are not meant to judge Jim negatively for his ability to deceive: instead, we admire him for using the logic of deception to his own advantage.

Nevertheless, this fact about the world of the novel does mean that it’s never easy to know exactly whom to trust. Even after learning of the planned mutiny of the Hispaniola crew, for instance, Jim hears them cheer the captain’s announcement of drinks for everyone and finds it hard to believe that they actually desire his death. When Long John Silver approaches his enemies’ camp on Treasure Island, holding a Flag of Truce, everyone must still remain suspicious of the brief peace, never knowing if it’s all a ploy.

In order to survive in such a world, a person must always remain one step ahead of his enemy—like Jim on the deck of the Hispaniola with Israel Hands, as the latter pretends to work with Jim while really plotting to kill him. Only by using deception himself (rather than being fooled, or even prizing honesty) can Jim enter the world of adults and begin to play by their game.

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Deception, Secrecy, and Trust Quotes in Treasure Island

Below you will find the important quotes in Treasure Island related to the theme of Deception, Secrecy, and Trust.
Chapter 3 Quotes

Now, if I can't get away nohow, and they tip me the black spot, mind you, it's my old sea-chest they're after; you get on a horse—you can, can't you? Well, then, you get on a horse, and go to-well, yes, I will!—to that eternal Doctor swab, and tell him to pipe all hands—magistrates and sich—and he'll lay'em aboard at the 'Admiral Benbow'—all old Flint's crew, man and boy, all on 'em that's left. I was first mate, I was, old Flint's first mate, and I'm the on'y one as knows the place. He gave it me at Savannah, when he lay a-dying, like as if I was to now, you see.

Related Characters: Billy Bones (“the captain”) (speaker), Jim Hawkins, Doctor Livesey, Captain Flint
Related Symbols: The Black Spot
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

Now, to tell you the truth, from the very first mention of Long John in Squire Trelawney’s letter, I had taken a fear in my mind that he might prove to be the very one-legged sailor whom I had watched for so long at the old “Benbow.” But one look at the man before me was enough. I had seen the captain, and Black Dog, and the blind man Pew, and I thought I knew what a buccaneer was like—a very different creature, according to me, from this clean and pleasant-tempered landlord.

Related Characters: Jim Hawkins (speaker), Long John Silver, Billy Bones (“the captain”), Pew, Black Dog
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

All the crew respected and even obeyed him. He had a way of talking to each, and doing everybody some particular service. To me he was unweariedly kind; and always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept as clean as a new pin; the dishes hanging up burnished, and his parrot in a cage in one corner.
“Come away, Hawkins,” he would say; “come and have a yarn with John. Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son. Sit you down and hear the news.”

Related Characters: Jim Hawkins (speaker), Long John Silver (speaker)
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

“Here it is about gentlemen of fortune. They lives rough, and they risk swinging, but they eat and drink like fighting-cocks, and when a cruise is done, why, it’s hundreds of pounds instead of hundreds of farthings in their pockets. Now the most goes for rum and a good fling, and to sea again in their shirts. But that’s not the course I lay.”

Related Characters: Long John Silver (speaker)
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:

“But mark my words here: I’m an easy man—I’m quite the gentleman, says you; but this time it’s serious. Dooty is dooty, mates. I give my vote—death. When I’m in Parlyment, and riding in my coach, I don’t want non of those sea-lawyers in the cabin a-coming home, unlooked for, like the devil at prayers. Wait is what I say, but when the time comes, why let her rip!”

Related Characters: Long John Silver (speaker)
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

“I were in Flint’s ship when he buried the treasure; he and six along—six strong seamen. They was ashore nigh on a week, and us standing off and on in the old Walrus. One fine day up went the signal, and here come Flint by himself in a little boat, and his head done up in a blue scarf. The sun was getting up, and mortal white he looked about the cutwater. But, there he was, you mind, and the six all dead—dead and buried. How he done it, not a man aboard us could make out. It was battle, murder, and sudden death, leastways—him against six. Billy Bones was the mate; Long John, he was quartermaster; and they asked him where the treasure was. ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘you can go ashore, if you like, and stay,’ he says; ‘but as for the ship, she’ll beat up for more, by thunder!’ That’s what he said.”

Related Characters: Ben Gunn (speaker), Long John Silver, Billy Bones (“the captain”), Captain Flint
Related Symbols: The Map of Treasure
Page Number: 82-83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

As for the scheme I had in my head, it was not a bad one in itself. I was to go down the sandy spit that divides the anchorage on the east from the open sea, find the white rock I had observed last evening, and ascertain whether it was there or not that Ben Gunn had hidden his boat; a thing quite worth doing, as I still believe. But as I was certain I should not be allowed to leave the enclosure, my only plan was to take French leave, and slip out when nobody was watching; and that was so bad a way of doing it as made the thing itself wrong. But I was only a boy, and I had made my mind up.

Related Characters: Jim Hawkins (speaker), Ben Gunn
Page Number: 118-119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

I was greatly elated with my new command, and pleased with bright, sunshiny weather and these different prospects of the coast. I had now plenty of water and good things to eat, and my conscience, which had smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted by the great conquest I had made. I should, I think, have had nothing left me to desire but for the eyes of the coxswain as they followed me derisively about the deck, and the odd smile that appeared continually on his face. It was a smile that had in it something both of pain and weakness—a haggard, old man’s smile; but there was, besides that, a grain of derision, a shadow of treachery in his expression as he craftily watched, and watched, and watched me at my work.

Related Characters: Jim Hawkins (speaker), Israel Hands
Page Number: 134-135
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

Israel could move about; he was now armed; and if he had been at so much trouble to get rid of me, it was plain that I was meant to be the victim.
[…]
Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in one point, since in that our interests jumped together, and that was in the disposition of the schooner. We both desired to have her stranded safe enough, in a sheltered place, and so that, when the time came, she could be got off again with as little labour and danger as might be; and until that was done I considered that my life would certainly be spared.

Related Characters: Jim Hawkins (speaker), Israel Hands
Page Number: 137-138
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 28 Quotes

“I was in the apple barrel the night we sighted land, and I heard you, John, and you, Dick Johnson, and Hands, who is now at the bottom of the sea, and told every word you said before the hour was out. And as for the schooner, 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 more, not one of you. The laugh’s on my side; I’ve had the top of the business from the first; I no more fear you than I fear a fly. Kill me, if you please, or spare me.”

Related Characters: Jim Hawkins (speaker), Long John Silver, Israel Hands, Dick
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 153-154
Explanation and Analysis:

“Understand me, Jim,” he said, returning. “I’ve a head on my shoulders, I have. I’m on squire’s side now. I know you’ve got that ship safe somewhere. How you done it, I don’t know, but safe it is. I guess Hands and O’Brien turned soft. I never much believed in any of them. Now you mark me. I ask no questions, nor I won’t let others. I know when a game’s up, I do: and I know a lad that’s staunch. Ah, you that’s young—you and me might have done a power of good together!”

Related Characters: Long John Silver (speaker), Jim Hawkins
Page Number: 156-157
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

Should the scheme he had now sketched prove feasible, Silver, already doubly a traitor, would not hesitate to adopt it. He had still a foot in either camp, and there was no doubt he would prefer wealth and freedom with the pirates to a bare escape from hanging, which was the best he had to hope on our side.

Related Characters: Jim Hawkins (speaker), Long John Silver
Page Number: 171
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of my life; but I daresay he met his old negress, and perhaps still lives in comfort with her and Captain Flint. It is to be hoped so, I suppose, for his chances of comfort in another world are very small.

Related Characters: Jim Hawkins (speaker), Long John Silver, Captain Flint (parrot)
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis: