Robert Louis Stevenson Research Paper

Robert Louis Stevenson was a "major literary celebrity in his own lifetime." (Towheed, 2012: p. 441). Stevenson was born is Edinburgh, to an upper-middle-class household. His childhood, though spent in a big house with fancy commodities, was plagued with illness. He was not allowed to spend time playing outside like other children his age for fear that his health may deteriorate. Thus, Stevenson was confined to his room, and he spent much time watching the world through his window. Naturally, he was intrigued by the outside world, a world he never experience, and many of his works were inspired by this (Towheed, 2012). He wrote adventure and romantic fiction for a long time, with the setting in faraway islands and foreign countries. "Despite a sheltered childhood, his imaginative compass was far-reaching, and his interest in the world beyond Edinburgh and Scotland more than merely cursory."

447). Later in his life, Stevenson moves to Samoa, a southern island in the commonwealth. Stevenson is quite surprised by the contrast of the exotic and tropical adventures he depicted in his stories, and by the actual life in the island, which was ruled by cultural encounter, and much less charming than the imagined picture he drew. He marries an American woman and settles in the island, mingling with the natives and never returning to his homeland. The novella The Beach of Falesá is one of the works Stevenson wrote after moving to Samoa, and it manifests the realistic life and cultural experiences of a British man in a southern island. This essay will discuss these experiences, focusing on the realistic genre of the novel, as opposed to the previous romantic adventurous works of Stevenson, as well as the different cultural themes in the novel, such as the portrayal of religious views and incorporation of the superstitious elements, the use of native language and pidgin and the idea of contact zone between Britain and the southern