While most of the novel is taken up with the voyage to and search for treasure, at the beginning the search is for the map itself that will lead its reader there. Treasure is the guiding motivation for most of the characters in the novel, the one goal that is never questioned or challenged. The map, in turn, represents this search—the quest for an avowed desire that triggers an entire novel’s plot. In some ways, this search is straightforward, requiring resources and courage, to be sure, but not exactly complicated. However, the treasure map itself is not exactly clear: it includes several red crosses which are too large to pinpoint a specific place, as well as a set of directions that could be interpreted in a number of ways. The search after one’s desires, the treasure map seems to suggest, is more complex than it seems at first, and requires not only persistence but the ability to interpret and respond to various challenges along the way.
The Map of Treasure Quotes in Treasure Island
The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills, and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores. It was about nine miles long and five across, shaped, you might say, like a fat dragon standing up, and had two fine landlocked harbours, and a hill in the centre part marked "The Spy-glass." There were several additions of a later date; but, above all, three crosses of red ink-two on the north part of the island, one in the south-west, and, beside this last, in the same red ink, and in a small, neat hand, very different from the captain's tottery characters, these words: “Bulk of treasure here.”
“I were in Flint’s ship when he buried the treasure; he and six along—six strong seamen. They was ashore nigh on a week, and us standing off and on in the old Walrus. One fine day up went the signal, and here come Flint by himself in a little boat, and his head done up in a blue scarf. The sun was getting up, and mortal white he looked about the cutwater. But, there he was, you mind, and the six all dead—dead and buried. How he done it, not a man aboard us could make out. It was battle, murder, and sudden death, leastways—him against six. Billy Bones was the mate; Long John, he was quartermaster; and they asked him where the treasure was. ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘you can go ashore, if you like, and stay,’ he says; ‘but as for the ship, she’ll beat up for more, by thunder!’ That’s what he said.”