My Featured Novel

Kidnapped

I. About the Novel

The recently orphaned David leaves rural Essendean to seek his fortune with his relatives, the Balfours of the House of Shaws. He meets his uncle Ebenezer and immediately suspects the shifty and miserly man of trying to avoid giving David his due inheritance. His suspicions are confirmed when his uncle sends him up a ruined stair-tower in the dark, intending David to plunge to his death. David learns rumours that Ebenezer murdered David’s father Alexander, for the Shaw estate. 

Despite some misgivings, David is delighted when he is invited to tour the Covenant. Suddenly sensing foul play, he shouts for help and is knocked unconscious – he has been kidnapped!



Works Cited （参考文献）

"Kidnapped, 1886 - Robert Louis Stevenson." Robert Louis Stevenson. RLS, n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2016. <http://robert-louis-stevenson.org/works/kidnapped-1886/>.

II. Versions of the Novel in the Mass Media

Kidnapped (1995)

summary
When Scottish young gentleman David Balfour's father dies, he leaves school to collect his inheritance from uncle Ebenezer, who in turn sells the boy as a future slave to a pirate ship. When staunch Stuart dynasty supporter Alan Breck Stewart accidentally boards the ship, he takes David along on his escape back to Edinburgh. They part and meet again repeatedly, mutually helpful against the Redcoats and respectful, although David is loyal to the English crown, but learns about its cruel oppression. Both ultimately face their adversaries.

Works Cited （参考文献）

KGF Vissers. "Plot Summary." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2016. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113539/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl>.

III. About the Author

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Lewis (later: “Louis”) Balfour Stevenson was born in　Edinburgh on 13 November 1850. His father Thomas belonged to a family of engineers who had built many of the deep-sea lighthouses around the rocky coast of Scotland. His mother, Margaret Isabella Balfour, came from a family of lawyers and church ministers. In 1857 the family moved to 17 Heriot Row, a solid, respectable house in Edinburgh’s New Town.

At the age of seventeen he enrolled at Edinburgh University to study engineering, with the aim – his father hoped – of following him in the family firm. However, he abandoned this course of studies and made the compromise of studying law. He “passed advocate” in 1875 but did not practice since by now he knew he wanted to be a writer. In the university’s summer vacations he went to France to be in the company of other young artists, both writers and painters. His first published work was an essay called "Roads", and his first published volumes were works of travel writing.

The authorial persona had changed from the debonair flâneur of the early works, but retained a joy in his craft and a consciousness in the shaping of his own life. He died in December 1894 and even shaped the manner of his burial: as he had wished, he was buried at the top of Mount Vaea above his home on Samoa. Appropriately it was a part of his own short poem, “Requiem” (from an 1887 collection), that was written on his tomb: “Under the wide and starry sky, / Dig the grave and let me lie…”

Works Cited （参考文献）

Dury, Richard. "Life - Robert Louis Stevenson." Robert Louis Stevenson. RLS, n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2016. <http://robert-louis-stevenson.org/life/>.

IV. My Reaction

A. Reaction Point - Character

• 定義 - The persons or things that are the focus of the plot
• 例 - David Balfour(main character), Alan Breck, Mr.Ebenezer
• 略 - David is honest and calm But he is easy to be deceived. 

                 Alan Breck helps David's survive. He has courage and smart. He is good at a fight.

                Mr.Ebenezer is David'uncle. He's bad guy. He arranges to sold into slavery.

                David and Alan build the good friendship through a fight and this journey.

B. Reaction Point - Form

• 定義 - the way in which the events of a story are arranged
• 例 - This novel has 14 chapter.
• 略 - First, encounter of David and his uncle.

Secondly, David meet Alan and he experienced a first fight in the ship.

Thirdly, David and Alan ran away.

Lastly, David can meet a lawyer and get the Inheritance.

C. Reaction Point - Fatal flaw

• 定義 - an imperfection, shortcoming or weakness in a character which leads to certain poor choices
• 例 - When David was talked by a captain and have got into a boat.
• 略 - David had a dangerous experience a lot because he had got into a boat. If I notice that he is doubtful before he got into a boat, he could meet a lawyer and inherit the inheritance of the parent immediately.

D. My General Opinion
I read by a class for the first time. Then I came to like it.
I thought this novel is story of the kidnapping from a title, but was surprised to understand this story that a chief character was sold, and a story began from there.
It was more interesting that a story unfolded. For example the fight scene, scene to run away and description to come off in the sea.