The Beach of Falesá' and the Colonial Enterprise

Abstract

This paper explores the place of Stevenson’s 'The Beach of Falesá' in the colonialist enterprise by examining it and modern historiography about the nineteenth-century Pacific Islands. The author concludes that Stevenson is ultimately complicit in that enterprise because he fails to present the indigenous islanders as agents rather than objects.

Keywords

• pacific islands, colonialism, indigenous characterisation, british literature