Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

We were all taught as young children that we should be nice to other people, and we were also taught that we should treat others in the manner that we ourselves wish to be treated. Well, it seems that this quarter, I have finally figured out why. It was because of smart, witty, and accomplished writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, who has turned out to be a great inspiration, even though they may not know it, to all who have ever said that quote. The majority of his works elaborate on the importance of friendship, and also stress that we should not be so rash in our decisions to leave our friends behind. This, I learned from reading, viewing, and analyzing the following works: Kidnapped, The Silverado Squatters, “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” Robert Louis Stevenson’s St. Ives (2000), “Graphic Classics: Robert Louis Stevenson,” which was illustrated by many people, and edited by Tom Pomplun, “The Bottle Imp,” “Drug Took Stevenson Face to Face with Hyde,” by Karen Goodwin, and the Wikipedia article on Robert Louis Stevenson. Although all of these works encompass a large variety of genres and writing styles, they all contain many things that link them together: the common theme that “friendship is a necessity in the world, whatever its state may be.” It just so happens that in all of these works, friendship is required in a world of turmoil. In this essay, I will begin by concisely summarizing of the above works, after which I will show how this thread is common in all of the works, and finally, I will explain the relevance of this particular thread.
Kidnapped is one of Stevenson’s most famous novels, and is also his most politically charged novel, being of the historical fiction genre, commenting on the political state of Britain, particularly about the Whigs and Jacobites. It is the story of a young David Balfour, who, in “search” of his inheritance, is “kidnapped” and becomes part of a war in which the side he is on is the side...