Document Type : Research article

Authors

1 Assistant professor of English Literature, Alzahra University

2 MA student of English Literature, Alzahra University

Abstract

This research looks at Robert Louise Stevenson’s renowned adventure romance, Treasure Island, in the light of its representation of social class struggles and the function of hegemonic conditioning in those struggles. It draws upon Antonio Gramsci's theories of hegemony and culture, coercion and consensus, and his notion of the organic intellectual. The careful analysis of the novel demonstrates the author’s critical attitude toward the dominant social system and his hope for an eventual breach in that system. The novel depicts the underlying hegemonic mind-frames that rule over social relationships from which very few characters can escape, and suggests that mass revolutions might not be successful in the toppling of the existing hegemony. Through the figure of Long John Silver, who is here compared to the organic intellectual of Gramsci’s theories, the novel proposes a cunning method of resistance against hegemonic forces similar to the Gramscian notion of war of position that could free people from hegemonic subjugation and lead them to success.

Keywords

Abi-Ezzi, N. (2000). An analysis of the treatment of the double in the work of Robert Louis Stevenson, Wilkie Collins, and Daphne du Maurier (Doctoral dissertation, King’s College, London, UK). Retrieved from https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/2928011/326164.pdf
Bogle Petterson, T. (2010). Childishness, primitivism and the primitive as child in the antiimperialist works of Robert Louis Stevenson. (Master’s thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington City, New Zealand). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10063/1445
Buttigieg, J. A. (1982). The exemplary worldliness of Antonio Gramsci’s literary criticism. Boundary 2, 11(1/2), 21-39. Doi: 10.2307/303016
Cooper, L. U. (1967). Robert Louis Stevenson. London: Arthur Barker.
Cremers, J. (2016). He’s more a man than any pair of rats of you: Masculinity in Stevenson’s Treasure Island and its adaptations (Bachelor thesis, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands). Retrieved from http://theses.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/123456789/3629/Cremers%2c%20Jasmijn%204248171.pdf?sequence=1
Eagleton, T. (1991). Ideology: An introduction. London: Verso.
Egan, D. (2014). Rethinking war of maneuver/war of position: Gramsci and the military metaphor. Critical Sociology, 40(4), 521-538. Doi: 10.1177/0896920513480222
Fletcher, L. (2007). Long John Silver, Karl Marx and the Ship of State. Critical Survey, 19(2), 34-47. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41556579
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Retrieved from http://abahlali.org/files/gramsci.pdf
Gramsci, A. (2000). A Gramsci reader: Selected writings 1916 – 1935. New York University Press.
Higgins, D. G. (2015). Robert Louis Stevenson within imperial precincts: A study of literary boundaries and marginalized voices (Master’s thesis, University of Glasgow, UK). Retrieved from http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6414/1/2015higginsphd.pdf
Howarth, D. (2015). Gramsci, hegemony and post-Marxism. In M. McNally (Ed.), Antonio Gramsci. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hunt, P., & Ray, S. G. (Eds.). (1996). International companion encyclopedia of children’s literature. London: Routledge.
Irvine, R. P. (2010). Romance and Social Class. In P. Fielding (Ed.), Edinburgh Companion to Robert Louis Stevenson (pp. 27-40). Edinburgh University Press.
Japp, A. (1996). The Look as of the Ancient Mariner. In R. C. Terry (Ed.), Robert Louis Stevenson: interviews and recollections (pp. 92-96). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jones, S. (2006). Antonio Gramsci. London: Routledge.
Kiely, R. (1971). Adventure as Boy’s Daydream: Treasure Island. In I. P. Watt (Ed), The Victorian novel: Modern essays in criticism (pp. 373-389). London: Oxford University Press.
Markowics, D. (2011). Gramsci, Antonio. In M. Ryan & G. Castle (Ed.), The encyclopedia of literary and cultural theory (pp. 221-226). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Mayo, P. (2015). Hegemony and education under neoliberalism insights from Gramsci. New York, NY: Routledge.
Mitropoulos, A. (2016). Wars of position, wars of maneuver. Retrieved from https://s0metim3s.com/2016/12/21/war-position-maneuver/
Ramos, Jr., V. (1982). The concepts of ideology, hegemony, and organic intellectuals inGramsci’s Marxism. Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/tr-gramsci.htm
Rosengarten, F. (2015). The revolutionary Marxism of Antonio Gramsci. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Stevenson, R. L. (1883). Treasure Island (2009 ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster.
Thurmond, D. B. (2012). The influence of Carl Jung’s Archetype of the Shadow on early 20th century literature (Master’s thesis, Rollin’s College, Winter Park, FL). Retrieved from http://scholarship.rollins.edu/mls/32
Webster, R. (1993). Studying literary theory: An introduction. London: Arnold.
Wood, N. J. (1998). Gold standards and silver subversions: Treasure Island and the romance of money. Children’s Literature, 26, 61-85