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Securing Their Worth (Original)
Securing Their Worth (Original)
mind when we first think of children’s vulnerable nature, children are both
physically and emotionally vulnerable. They are not only unsure of how ably
they might handle threats upon their lives but of the very value of the life
which might be taken from them. Indeed, their need to be made to feel
special inspires its own fear: namely, that it might make them vulnerable to
Wilbur, are initially unsure of their worth, and therefore are also unsure of
how much they deserve the high praise they often receive. They both,
however, end up finding a way to be more certain that they truly matter to
ordinary boy. It is Billy Bones, the fearsome pirate who visits his parent’s
inn, who is described as being impossible to ignore. Bones, then, Jim’s first
perfect person for young Jim to use as a sort of touchstone to gauge his own
relevance. Most people were frightened by Bones (4), and though Jim tells
us that he “was far less afraid of the captain himself than anybody else who
knew him” (3), and though he tells us that the captain took a special interest
make use of him. When he takes Jim “aside” (3), when he tells Jim that he
“had taken quite a fancy to [him]” (8), both the reader and Jim sense that
Bones thinks of him only as a pliable tool. Jim is portrayed as having made
little impression at all upon Bones; it is, rather, Bones, especially when he
tries to bribe Jim and thereby reveals that he thinks of him as “common”
Jim receives praise, the praise ends up proving to be of suspect worth. For
example, the squire, who has just met Jim, gauges that “this lad Hawkins is a
subsequently also calls the “cook,” John Silver, “a perfect trump” (46). Silver
lets Jim know right away that he thinks he is “smart as paint,” and then
suggests just how dull and easily charmed he really thinks Jim is by
subsequently trying to persuade him that “none of the pair us smart” (45).
(Jim is later provided with further evidence that Silver had actually judged
him rather ordinary when he overhears Silver call another boy “as smart as
paint” [58].) But before landing on Treasure Island, however, Jim does little
launches a great adventure, though he spots Black Dog at the Spy Glass and
puts all Long John Silver’s plans at risk, there is little sense that these actions
instance, that the only person whose status (for the reader and Jim, at least)
who remains “calm and steady” (6) after the captain threatened him with a
knife. Bones clearly had underestimated the “neat, bright doctor” (5), and
as a result is described as still having him on his mind months afterwards (7).
And once Jim ends up doings things which truly defy expectation, which
After Jim leaves his friends and joins the pirates as they embark for the
island, Livesey, who temporarily takes control of the narrative, reveals how
he “wonder[ed] over poor Jim Hawkins’s fate” (96). As far as the Livesey was
concerned, Jim was so much the vulnerable and frail boy that he thought him
very likely to succumb to the various threats the island or, most especially,
the pirates would present him with. But by ending his narration with Jim’s
he had underestimated Jim’s survival skills, and likely also how stunned he
was to see Jim return to them unscathed. When he once again unexpectedly
finds Jim before him, the doctor, who previously had a habit of interrupting
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Jim (29), shows how much he now respects him by listening to what he had
to say in full and “in silence” (168) before responding to him. Livesey then
tells Jim that he judges him to be someone who at “[e]very step, [. . .] saves
our lives” (168), and thereby provides him with a very flattering but accurate
assessment of his value to their party. Jim ends up surprising Silver with an
unexpected “visit,” as well; and he informs the person who had once so
readily sized him up as simply an impressionable and needy young boy, that
he had killed some of his men and taken control of the schooner. And though
Jim writes that he wasn’t quite sure whether or not the “curious” “accent”
Silver adopts in reply was evidence that he “had been favourably affected by
[his] courage” (152), Silver, by putting all his intelligence and skill into saving
Jim’s life, ends up showing Jim that he too now considers him to be the sort
someone whom his account’s first noteworthy personage, Billy Bones, pales
Long John Silver’s identities. He does this by following the termination of the
doctor’s control over the narrative with a chapter which ends with Silver now
making a sudden and unexpected appearance at their camp. And Silver, the
man who could so easily become a “bland, polite, obsequious seaman” (186)
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when it suits his purpose to do so but whose true worth is never in doubt, is
the perfect person for someone like Jim to try and make himself seem, even
Island has made him someone only fools might mistake for a rather ordinary
boy.
webs, and he might attempt this impossible feat for the same reason that
prove he could do more than others assumed he was capable of. Jim was to
be a simple “cabin-boy” (34) on the journey, someone who would tag along
and whom others would need to protect. Similarly, Wilbur was assigned no
role in the planning and execution of Charlotte’s efforts to save him. But
someone who might not only be able to take care of himself but someone
who might save others, Wilbur pitifully fails in his repeated attempts to spin a
and better than he is, and tries to content himself by admiring her expertise.
His failure to spin a web is so deflating for Wilbur because, like Jim, he
has little sense of his intrinsic worth. Wilbur is a runt, about as far as you
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can get from being “a born favourite,” and his status as the weakest of his
litter, the one a farmer would deem most likely to live a sickly life and have
an early death, makes Fern’s father think of him as simply something “to [be
quickly done] away with” (1). Not even Fern’s frantic efforts to save Wilbur,
clear evidence of Wilbur’s worth. For unlike Silver’s efforts to save Jim, which
though there is no doubt that Fern loves Wilbur, the possibility exists that
Fern might so readily judge Wilbur “absolutely perfect” not only because she
finds him adorable but because he sees in him an absolutely perfect means
by which to calm her own fears and to realize her own dreams. Saving the
newly born runt pig might have helped assuage her own fears that someone
might not always be there to help her when she is needy and vulnerable.
Certainly her readiness to compare herself to the pig suggests that her own
fears and insecurities came to mind when she heard that a pig was
(3).
charge of Wilbur might also have helped Fern develop a stronger sense of
her self-worth. Having ownership of Wilbur certainly makes her “feel lucky”
(7); and she is lucky to have him for he is the means by which she can begin
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“tak[ing] charge” (7) of. She nurtures Wilbur, she names him, and Wilbur
greets her attention with his own “adoring eyes” (8), that is, with sure
confirmation of her importance to him. But as Fern grows older and is more
discover that, though she saved Wilbur’s life, she did not do much to make
him feel so sure of his own intrinsic worth that he wouldn’t doubt the nature
When Charlotte takes over Fern’s role as his guardian and protector,
Wilbur conveys to her just how unsure he is of his own value. He insists to
Charlotte that he is “not terrific,” that he is “just about average” (91), and he
making him feel special, tells him that he should be content to know that she
finds him “terrific” and “sensational” (91). But actually Wilbur has very good
thing, the use of the word “sensational” suggests over-praise; it is the sort of
word Charlotte might put in her web to inflate Wilbur’s value in the eyes of
herself, not only ensures that Wilbur relates to her in the same dependent,
worshipful way in which he related to Fern, but that all credit for saving his
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provides Wilbur with evidence which suggests that she places far more value
the tale she tells Wilbur, for instance, she calls a conflict between a cousin of
hers and a “wildly thrashing” (102) fish whom her cousin succeeds in
also serves to draw attention to and emphasize Charlotte’s great worth. For
Charlotte, like her ostensible cousin, also uses her web to capture something
quite spectacular—in her case, the county wide praise for a rather ordinary
looking pig.
(67), probably would have a hard time imagining himself akin to either of the
wildly and as spectacularly as the tale’s fish did, and he will end up capturing
Wilbur evaded farmer and farm hand alike, and, indeed, never was actually
caught by any of them. And this activity resulted in him receiving praise
which seemed well earned, which truly suggested that he might be “quite
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[the] [. . .] pig” (23). And whether or not Wilbur might have intuited the
conditions necessary for him to once again seem truly praiseworthy, Wilbur
finally ends up capturing something of great value only when he once again
finds himself away from the barn, without Charlotte there to assist him. At
the fair, and with Charlotte near death, his quick thinking and assertiveness
original), her greatest creation: her egg sack. And the feint wink Charlotte
gives him in reply likely outdoes all her magnificent web spinning efforts in
Both Jim Hawkins and Wilbur are portrayed as if they are uncertain of
their worth, and both end up seeming worthy of recognition only after they
are able to accomplish something of evident worth which others might not
in. In both books, then, the potentially dangerous and unpredictable outside
world is not simply a place children should fear. It is also a fair in which they
might hope to find the sort of praise they prize, a treasure trove in which
they might hope to unearth their true value, a play ground in which they