In Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883), young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map in the chest of an old pirate who died at his mother’s inn. Squire Trelawney and Dr Livesey fit out a ship, the Hispaniola, and hire a crew. The cook is Long John Silver, a cheerful, one-legged sailor with a crutch and a parrot called Captain Flint that shouts “Pieces of eight!”. Silver befriends Jim at once. One night, hidden in an apple barrel, Jim overhears him: Silver was the quartermaster of the pirate Flint, most of the crew are his men, and they plan to kill the officers once the treasure is found. On the island the mutiny breaks out. Silver kills an honest sailor who refuses to join him. Later, when his own men turn against him, he protects Jim, partly out of affection and partly to save his own neck. At the end, on the way home, he escapes in a Spanish American port with a bag of coins, and nobody makes much effort to stop him.
// The theoryLearning from those we admire
Edwin Sutherland had argued that crime is learned in direct contact with intimate groups. In 1956 Daniel Glaser pointed out a gap: many people take up criminal attitudes without ever having belonged to a criminal group. His explanation was differential identification: “a person pursues criminal behaviour to the extent that he identifies himself with real or imaginary persons from whose perspective his criminal behaviour seems acceptable”. The model does not need to be close. It can be a famous gangster, a character in a film, an older boy seen from afar or a hero of a novel. What matters is that the person wants to be like him and adopts his way of seeing things. Glaser’s idea anticipated much of the later research on role models, media and the attraction of charismatic offenders.
Identification is not imitation
Glaser’s concept is not simply about copying behavior. It is about taking on someone’s perspective: seeing the world from where he stands and finding his choices reasonable. That is exactly what happens to Jim. Silver does not teach him to steal or to kill. What he offers is a way of being: adult, free, brave, funny, able to win anyone over. Jim admires him before he knows what he is, and keeps admiring him after he knows. The novel never lets Jim become a pirate, but it shows how close he comes to seeing things from Silver’s side, and how difficult it is for him to condemn a man who has treated him as an equal.
// The subjectThe most likeable villain
Silver is one of the most influential villains in literature precisely because he is not simply evil. He is intelligent, eloquent and adaptable; he has courage and a kind of honor; he saves Jim’s life more than once. He is also a ruthless killer who changes sides whenever his interest requires. Stevenson builds him so that the reader feels the same ambivalence as Jim. That combination—charm and danger in the same person—is what makes him an ideal object of identification. A model that was only cruel would attract nobody. What attracts is the mixture of qualities we admire with conduct we should reject, and the impression that he gets away with it, as he does in the last chapter.
Long John Silver
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// The crackAdmiring is not becoming
Differential identification has an obvious problem: most people who admire a fictional villain never commit a crime. Generations of children have loved Long John Silver without becoming pirates. Glaser’s theory explains a mechanism of influence, not its outcome; whether identification leads to crime depends on many other things, such as opportunities, bonds and the person’s own values. It is also difficult to test: identification is an internal experience, hard to measure, and the theory risks explaining everything after the fact.
The novel itself suggests a more balanced reading. Jim identifies with Silver and still chooses the side of the law; his admiration coexists with his judgment. What Glaser adds is a warning about the conditions in which admiration becomes dangerous: when a young person lacks other models, when the admired figure is the only one who offers recognition, when crime appears as the path to the qualities he envies. Silver is attractive because he seems free. For a boy with no other way of being free, that attraction can weigh more.
The models a young person has
Glaser’s lesson is practical: prevention also involves the models available to young people. Programmes that offer mentors, adults who provide recognition and an example of a different life, work in that space. So does the debate on the glamorization of crime in music, film and social networks, which should not lead to censorship but to an understanding of why certain figures attract. Long John Silver attracts because he combines courage, wit and freedom. The question for prevention is how to offer those same qualities on the other side of the law.
Three key ideas
- Differential identification (Glaser, 1956) holds that people adopt criminal attitudes by identifying with real or imaginary figures from whose perspective crime seems acceptable, without needing to belong to a criminal group.
- Long John Silver organizes a mutiny and kills an honest sailor, but he is charismatic, brave and fatherly with Jim Hawkins, who admires him before and after knowing what he is.
- The crack: most people who admire a villain never offend; the theory describes a mechanism of influence, not its outcome, and depends on what other models and bonds a young person has.
Sources · further reading
- Glaser, D. (1956). “Criminality Theories and Behavioral Images”. American Journal of Sociology, 61(5), 433-444.
- Sutherland, E. H. and Cressey, D. R. (1978). Criminology (10th ed.). J. B. Lippincott.
- Leeson, P. T. (2009). The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates. Princeton University Press.
- Stevenson, R. L. (1883). Treasure Island. Cassell & Company.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
Who is Long John Silver?
Long John Silver (“Barbacoa”) is a villain from Treasure Island, analysed on KRIMINIS through the lens of criminology. He was kind, funny, knew stories of the sea and treated Jim as an equal.
Why does Long John Silver (Barbecue) become a villain?
Long John Silver and differential identification theory: the cook of Treasure Island organizes a mutiny, kills an honest sailor and still wins the affection of Jim Hawkins and of generations of readers. In 1956 Daniel Glaser explained that you do not need to mix with offenders to learn from them: it is enough to want to be like one.
Which criminological theory explains Long John Silver?
Long John Silver's case is analysed through Differential identification. Daniel Glaser’s differential identification theory (1956) corrects Sutherland: you do not need to live among offenders to learn to offend, it is enough to identify with someone, real or imaginary, from whose perspective crime seems acceptable. Long John Silver, the one-legged cook of Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883), is the identification model par excellence. He prepares a mutiny, kills a sailor who refuses to join and changes sides whenever it suits him, but he is charismatic, brave and fatherly towards young Jim Hawkins. The novel shows Glaser’s mechanism from the inside: a boy who admires a pirate, and a reader who, like the boy, misses him when he goes.
