Treasure Island - Chapter 3: The Black Spot

Summary
After Billy Bones succumbed to a stroke while tackling to execute Black Dog, Jim takes good
care of him. Billy beseeches him for rum in return for money, which irritates and offends Jim.
All he asks is that Billy pays his father adequately. Due to Billys awful and loud pleading,
Jim ends up allowing him one single glass of rum. Billy is reinforced by the alcohol, which
makes him believe he is ready to spring back into action. He mentions that his sea chest is
wanted by the crew of the ship he used to sail on. Later on that night, Jims father passes
away. On the next day, on his way home from his fathers funeral, he comes across a
threatening blind man who orders him to take him to Billy. The unsighted man hands Billy a
black spot, and leaves the inn immediately. Jim is soon to learn that this black spot signifies a
secret pirate summons. After reading the black sport, Billy exclaims he has only 6 hours left,
and is suddenly stricken by a fatal stroke.

Quotes
[Billy Bones] wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker; but soon after I had given
him his medicine, which he took like a child, with the remark, "If ever a seaman wanted
drugs, it's me," he fell at last into a heavy, swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. (3.19)

This quote demonstrates that illness makes us dependent and childlike. It also reveals
to us that medicine represents one of Billy Bones's weaknesses, if he does have any
more.

But [Billy Bones] broke in cursing the doctor, in a feeble voice but heartily. (...) 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. (...) 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." (3.4)

We now find out that Billy Bones lived through terrible situations, and has used rum
to drown his sorrows. He has become so dependent on rum that he demands it even
though it will kill him. The contrast between how fun pirate adventures sound and
how awful they really are shows us the imperfections of a pirates life.

Glossary

CUTLASS: a short curving sword formerly used by sailors on warships.

He had an alarming way now when he was drunk of drawing his cutlass and laying it bare
before him on the table. (p.30)
BUCCANEER: a pirate who attacked and stole from Spanish ships in the 17th/18th centuries.
It cowed me more than the pain, and I began to obey him at once, walking straight in at the
door and towards the parlour, where our sick old buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum.
(p.31)

APOPLEXY: a sudden loss of bodily function due to rupture or occlusion of a blood vessel.
The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy (p.32)

UTTER: to give audible expression to; speak or pronounce

His words, spirited as they were in meaning, contrasted sadly with the weakness of the
voice in which they were uttered(p.28)

Theme analysis: Fatherhood

In this chapter as well as in the two previous ones, Jims astonished wonder of the different
characters corresponds to our own point of view. Jim is submissive and frightened of the
pirates drunken, swaggering, coarse language and tendency toward violence. He exclaims
for his mother at the end of Chapter 3, which points out that he is just a scared little boy,
living a world completely apart from the sailors. The emphasis on Jims childishness in the
first chapters highlights how Jim evolves throughout the novel. Furthermore, the contrast
between the narrators innocence and the characters background cooperates in setting the
stage for the transition into adulthood that Jim later experiences.

Fortune and Greed

Rum appears as an influential symbol of the pirates recklessness, violence, and undisciplined
behavior. People acknowledge rum as a cheap form of alcohol, contrarily to the sophisticated
and fancy wine that the captains men infrequently consume. But the pirates do not engage in
light social drinking: When they luxuriate in rum, their intoxication is ruinous, as proved in
the pirate song about the dead mans chest.

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

Despite Dr Liveseys warning that rum will kill him, Billy still keeps drinking.