The Coral Island - Themes

Themes

The basic subject of the novel is popular and widespread: "castaway children assuming adult responsibilities without adult supervision", and The Coral Island is hailed as "the classic example" of such a book. The supposed civilising influence of missionaries in spreading Christianity among the natives of the South Seas is an important theme of the second half of the story; as Jack remarks to Peterkin, "all the natives of the South Sea Islands are fierce cannibals, and they have little respect for strangers". Modern critics see this theme as less benevolent: Jerry Phillips, in a 1995 article, sees in The Coral Island the "perfect realiz" of "the official discourse of 19th century Pacific imperialism" which, he argues, was "obsessed with the purity of God, Trade, and the Nation."

The importance of hierarchy and leadership is also a significant element. Although Jack, Ralph and Peterkin each have a say in how they should organise themselves, ultimately the younger boys defer to Jack, "a natural leader", particularly in a crisis, forming a natural hierarchy. The pirates also have a hierarchy, but one without democracy, and as a consequence are wiped out. The hierarchy of the natives is imposed by savagery. Ballantyne's message is that leaders should be respected by those they lead, and govern with their consent.

Modern critics find darker undertones in the novel. Martine Dutheil, in an essay published in a 2001 special issue of College English devoted to oral fixation and cannibalism, stated that The Coral Island can be thought of as epitomising a move away from "the confidence and optimism of the early Victorian proponents of British imperialism" toward "self-consciousness and anxiety about colonial domination". Others have also linked popular boys' fiction of the period with imperialism; Joseph Bristow's Empire Boys (1991) claimed to see an "'imperialist manhood,' which shaped British attitudes towards empire and masculinity." The novel's portrayal of Pacific culture and the effects of colonization are analyzed in studies such as Brian Street's The Savage in Literature: Representations of 'Primitive' Society in English Fiction (1975) and Rod Edmond's Representing the South Pacific: Colonial Discourse from Cook to Gauguin (1998).

The novel's exploration of the relationship between nature and evangelical Christianity is another typically Victorian theme. Katharine Anderson sees a "pious significance" in the coral jewellery so beloved in the period, and the "coral garden" tended by the boys suggestive of "missionary encounters with the societies of the Pacific Island".