A boy's coming of age

For the duration of existence human beings suffer the physical and mental stages of growing up. During these stages humans circumstantiate through their experiences to who they actually are in addition to what they are worth. Treasure Island is an adventure tale, but also looked at as a story of one boy’s coming of age. Life is a learning process, we learn when we grow. On the outset of the voyage, Jim was a timid adolescent, but by the closing stages, he had matured incredibly.
Jim Hawkins metamorphosis from a reticent thirteen year old boy to a ripe and sophisticated young adult begun with the presence of Billy Bones. When they might for the first time in the Admiral Benbow he left a memorable impact on Jim. “I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came ploddy to the Inn door, his sea chest following behind him in a hand-baron, a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his pigtail falling over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails; and the sabre cut across one cheek. I remember him looking ‘round the cove and whistling to himself as he did so often afterwards” (1). Jim and Billy established a devoted friendship. Jim was an only a young child at the time and he redeems intelligence throughout his journey in Treasure Island.
Jim searches for the right role model to follow. At first Jim looked at Dr. Livesey as an authority figure because of his position in the community, and his intellectual knowledge on the realistic world. Immediately when Jim found the map he turned to Dr. Livesey when he did not know what to do with it. Jim looks deep inside of people when he is around not only new faces, but with people he has already built a friendship with. Jim’s father wasn’t that tenacious father that most of us have. Jim matures not only through age, but who he encounters, and how well he accesses them as that male father figure. Jim is still in search for that level of maturity. Neither Dr. Livesey, nor squire Trelawney can inspire Jim as to who he chooses as that mentor in his life.
Jim’s explorations with the pirates changed sped him along his way down the road to adulthood even faster. He began to concentrate on the pirate’s actions, and the way they present themselves. Long John Silver and Jim grew close. Jim's made a first impression about Long John “His left leg was cut off close by the hip, and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird. He was very tall and strong, with a face as big as a ham-plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling” (76). From the first time Jim met silver instantly he begun seeking advice, and learning.
Maturity is not something that happens overnight. It’s a process that demands knowing right from wrong. Decision making plays an immense role on the level of maturity one can possess. Maturity is about choice. You can be given every skill that you need to survive and if you are mature enough you will use them. Jim out smarts Israel Hands by his sense of maturity while representing the difference between those who can take care of themselves and those who cannot. “I was no sooner certain of this than I began to feel sick, faint, and terrified. The hot blood was running over my back and chest. The dirk, where it had pinned my shoulder to the mast, seemed to burn like a hot iron; yet it was not so much these real sufferings that distressed me ... it was the horror I had upon my mind of falling from the cross-trees into that still green water beside the body of the coxswain. I clung with both hands till my nails ached, and I shut my eyes as if to cover up the peril. Gradually my mind came back again, my pulses quieted down to a more natural time, and I was once more in possession of myself “(170).