Treasure Island Quotes

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In Treasure Island the story is plagued by alcohol ruining plans or people’s lives because of extreme abuse of drugs and alcohol. The life of a pirate going on adventures is shown to be fun and exciting early on in the book, but soon after the the reader peruses about Billy Bones they discover that the life of a pirate is not what it is made out to be. The life of a pirate is full of sorrows and grief that most pirates drown in alcohol. This abuse of alcohol is best shown with the quote “But he broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. "Doctors is all swabs," he said; "and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes – what do the doctor know of lands like that? – and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab” (24). The quote shows the struggles that Billy Bones faced on his adventures like his shipmates dieing from yellow fever and how he drowned his sorrows in rum and continues to abuse rum even though …show more content…

”I went into the cellar; all the barrels were gone, and of the bottles a most surprising number had been drunk out and thrown away. Certainly, since the mutiny began, not a man of them could ever have been sober” (150). After Jim retakes control of the Hispaniola again, he finds out that all of the alcohol that was stored in the underside of the ship had be consumed by the pirates. The large amount alcohol being consumed helps explain why the pirates were singing and dancing on the beach and their inability to keep watch over the ship. If the pirates had been sober on the island Jim would have had a harder time retaking the Hispaniola and getting off of the island with most of the

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