An Imperialist’s Garden of Eden: Images of Oceania in R. M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island

Abstract

This paper discusses how Oceania is depicted in an example of Victorian children’s literature, in Ballantyne’s The Coral Island. The island is described as a garden of Eden, in which the protagonists of the novel can build a model colonial civilisation. The idea of civilisation is also central to Ballantyne’s representation of Pacific Islanders, who are described with typical racist stereotypes as childish and cruel, but whose inferiority is described as cultural rather than biological and who should be civilised and christianised.

Keywords

• literature
• imperialism
• oceania
• r. m. ballantyne
• the coral island