The Treasure in the Forest
- HG Wells
H. G. Wells, full Herbert George Wells, (1866-1946) was an
English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian, best known for such
science fiction novels. His first novel, The Time Machine (1895) was
immediately successful, and so he added a series of science fiction novels that
revealed him as a writer of marked originality and immense richness of ideas.
His science fiction novels include The Wonderful Visit (1895), The Island of
Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds(1898),
The First Men in the Moon (1901), and The Food of the Gods (1904). He also
wrote many short stories, which were collected in The Stolen Bacillus (1895),
The Plattner Story (1897), and Tales of Space and Time (1899). This story is
taken from the collection The Country of the Blind and other Short Stories. The
Treasure in the Forest is an ominous adventure story in which two men search
for Spanish treasure, letting greed get the better of their awareness. As the
story moves ahead to show how power and greed corrupt human beings.
• Characters:
1. Evans and Hooker: two friends who make
an adventurous journey to a Tropical island for hunting treasures.
2. Chang-hi- a Chinese man who has a map
of the treasures and two other Chinese men- Chang-hi’s co-workers
• Moral: The more we desire greed and power, the more we become selfish.
• Short Summary:
“The Treasure in the Forest” is an ominous adventure story
in which two men search for Spanish treasure, letting greed get the better of
their awareness. As the story moves ahead to show how power and greed corrupt
human beings.
The fundamental message of The Treasure in the Forest is to
not take risks when we are unprepared. The two Englishmen took risks in an
unfamiliar wilderness and were killed soon. This story was about two Englishmen
who heard about gold on an island and obtained a map from a Chinese. So they
paddled a canoe to the island, having fallen asleep aboard the boat. They drove
their boat into a lagoon and up a river in the forest, following the chart and
successfully arriving at their destination. When they discovered the death of
the Chinese they had spoken with, they were terrified and began to worry about
their safety, but nothing occurred. They were packing the gold when Evans
received a puncture from the gold. Evans tried to forget about it, but the
deadly puncture caused him to die for a short time. Evans urged the other man,
Hooker, to discard the bad gold. Hooker, on the other hand, was afraid and
didn’t even understand what his friend told him, and Hooker accidentally
touched the gold. Finally, both of the men died.
This story succeeds in depicting the dreadful scenario when
they confronted the danger, and the outcome of taking the risk will draw
attention to others.
Understanding the text
Answer the following questions.
a. Describe the expository scene of the story.
Answer: The story opens with the canoe
approaching the land, by two treasure hunters, Evans and Hooker, a little river
flowing to the sea, the thicker and deeper green forest, sloppy hill, and the
sea.
b. What does the map look like and how do Evan and Hooker interpret it?
Answer: The map looks like a rough map, creased
and worn to the pitch of separation. Evan interprets twisting lines on the map
as the river and the star as the place and Hooker interprets the dotted line
and straight line and the way to the lagoon on the map.
c. How did Evan and Hooker know about the treasure?
Answer: Evan and Hooker knew about the treasure
from the conversation of the Chinese men and the information from the map.
d. Describe Evan’s dream.
Answer: Evan had a dream about the treasure and
Chang-hi. In the dream, they were in the forest and saw a little fire where
three Chinamen sat around it and talked in quiet voices in English. Evans went
closer and he knew that Chang-hi took the gold from a Spanish galleon after it
shipwrecked and hid it carefully on the island. He worked alone and it was his
secret, but now he wanted help to get the gold back. There was a battle and
Chang-hi was brutally killed by them.
e. What do the two treasure hunters see when they walk toward the island?
Answer: The two treasure hunters see three palm
trees in line with a clump of bushes at the mouth of the stream when they walk
towards the island.
f. In what condition did the treasure hunters find the dead man?
Answer: The treasure hunters found the dead man
lying in a clear space among the trees with a puffed and purple neck and
swollen hands and ankles.
g. How did the treasure hunters try to carry gold ingots to the canoe?
Answer: The treasure hunters tried to carry gold
ingots to the canoe with the help of the Coat of which one end of the collar
was caught by the hand of Hooker and the other collar by Evan.
h. How were Evan and Hooker poisoned?
Answer: Evan and Hooker were poisoned as a
slender (thin) thorn nearly two inches in length pricked in Hooker’s thumb and
Evan rolled over him and both of them crumpled together on the ground which
made them suffer a lot.
Reference to the Context
a. How do you know the story is set on a tropical island?
Answer: The story “The Treasures in the Forest”
has been set on a tropical island. It begins with two men, Evans and Hooker,
heading in a canoe towards a coral island in the heat of the noon sun, after
having paddled all night from the mainland.
Here, Tropical islands are known to have uniquely naturally
variable ecosystems, including tropical rainforests, open woodlands and grass
savannahs, freshwater lakes and streams, salt marshes and mudflats (wetland),
mangrove and coastal forests, sefis, fringing and offshore coral reefs, and deep
sea.
As we go through the story, which opens with a canoe
approaching land, the setting of the bay, the white surf of the reef, the
litter river, running to the sea, the virgin forest, sloppy hill, and so on.
Its atmosphere, ecosystems, thicker and green forest, freshwater stream coastal
forest, palm trees, thorny bushes, seagrass and depth sea illustrate the reader
know that the story is set on a tropical island.
b. Why do you think Evan and Hooker took such a risk of finding the buried treasure on a desert island?
Answer: I think Evan and Hooker took such a risk
of finding the buried treasure on a desert island because of the following
reasons:
- Treasure
Hunts help people develop new skills and strengthen and reinforce other skills
such as leadership, communication, and problem-solving.
- This
is of equal benefit to employees and employers combined.
- Lt
develops the ability to tackle any difficult circumstances.
- They
think of risks as rewarding.
- It
is said that “Gold makes people crazy” to do something new.
- It also reveals their greed for wealth.
c. Do you think the narrator of the story is racist? If yes, what made him feel superior to other races?
Answer: Yes, some sort of racist feelings can be
found in the narrator of the story when he presents; Evan and Hooker as
superior to the Chinese man in the story. In fact, a racist is a person who is
prejudiced against or antagonistic towards people based on their membership of
a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or
marginalized. In the story, we find the Chinese man was brutally killed by
Evans and Hooker. When Hooker said to Evans, “Have you lost your wit?”, it also
reflects dominating nature of Hooker over Ivan. Thus, many instances in the
story state that the narrator of the story looks like a racist to some extent.
d. What do you think is the moral of the story?
Answer: “The more we desire greed and power, the more we become selfish” is the moral of the story “The Treasure in the Forest”. Evans and Hooker’s greed increase as they come to know about the treasures. They murdered the Chinese man Chiang-hi brutally and they went in search of treasures with the help of the map. It is Greed that is the disordered desire for more than is decent, not for the greater good but one’s own selfish interest, and at the detriment of others and society at large. Greed can be for anything but is most commonly for money or treasures and power is much more dangerous and it can lead to someone’s death as well which we find in the story.
Reference beyond the text
a. Interpret the story as a mystery story.
b. Treasure hunting is a favorable subject of children’s
story. Remember a treasure hunting story you read in your childhood and compare
and contrast it with ‘The Treasure in the Forest.’
