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The Black Spot
Many of the pirates throughout Treasure Island could well be identified as alcoholics in today’s terms. At the very least, rum is highly important for them, and some pirates are clearly addicted to it—including Billy Bones, who begs Jim to slip him some even when the doctor forbids it. On Treasure Island, meanwhile, many of the pirates stay up late and have drunken revelries organized around drinking rum. The drink is thus associated with the wild lawlessness of piracy. In contrast, Jim, the doctor, and the squire are not just sober but sober-minded, able to outwit the pirates who are weakened by their addiction. Interestingly, Long John Silver is one of the few pirates who seems relatively uninterested in rum, and is certainly unaffected by its power, allowing him to outwit any enemy, including his own men. Jim is only a boy, but he is educated early on into some of the more insidious dangers of adulthood—not just deadly plots and dangers at sea, but also the ways that something like rum that can destroy a person from within. This is a lesson that would have been familiar to many readers in late-nineteenth-century Britain, where Victorian writers often insisted on the immorality of alcohol and alcoholism.
Rum Quotes in Treasure Island
The Treasure Island quotes below all refer to the symbol of Rum. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
I remember him looking round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Treasure Island LitChart as a printable PDF.
Rum Symbol Timeline in Treasure Island
The timeline below shows where the symbol Rum appears in Treasure Island. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1. The Old Sea Dog at the “Admiral Benbow”
...breaks out now and then into a “sea song,” ending “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” He drinks lots of rum, and tells Jim’s father to call him captain, but doesn’t...
(full context)
...tells the captain that he’ll drink himself to death if he keeps up with the rum, and the captain, furious, draws a knife against the doctor. The doctor remains calm, however,...
(full context)
Chapter 2. Black Dog Appears and Disappears
The captain asks Jim for rum, but soon falls to the floor, his face ashen. Jim’s mother races downstairs and they...
(full context)
...where Black Dog is. The doctor begins to lecture him about the dangers of drinking rum, and once they get the captain to bed, he tells Jim that another stroke would...
(full context)
Chapter 3. The Black Spot
...grateful he is for the boy’s loyalty, and asks him for just a bit of rum, despite what the doctor said. He claims he’s lived on rum and one glass won’t...
(full context)
The captain drinks the rum in one swallow, then tries to get up but falls back down. He tells Jim...
(full context)
Chapter 10. The Voyage
...and most of the crew seems content, especially because they’re often given “double grog” (a rum drink), “duff” (a pudding), and there’s a barrel of apples for anyone who’d like one....
(full context)
Chapter 11. What I Heard in the Apple Barrel
...for an apple. Jim is terrified he’ll be discovered, but immediately Hands suggests they drink rum instead.
(full context)
Chapter 19. Narrative Resumed by Jim Hawkins: The Garrison in the Stockade
...also notices a group of pirates who, by the sound of it, have been drinking rum. Finally he is able to sneak into the stockade.
(full context)
...the Hispaniola. All night, they hear the pirates roaring and singing under the influence of rum. But early in the morning, they hear a voice crying, “Flag of truce!”—it’s Silver himself.
(full context)
Chapter 25. I Strike the Jolly Roger
...the floor. In the cellar all the barrels are gone, as are most of the rum bottles. He finds one, however, as well as some biscuit, fruits, raisins, and cheese. Jim...
(full context)
Chapter 32. The Treasure Hunt—The Voice among the Trees
...high voice rings out, singing the classic sailor song, finishing “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” The pirates all go pale, and Merry cries that it’s Flint. To Jim, the voice...
(full context)
