![]() ![]() 2Ĥ It is the story of an unlikely friendship between young and naive David Balfour of Shaws, a Whig Lowlander by family tradition but whose personal political positions are rather unsettled, and who cautiously defines himself as “betwixt and between” (60), and Alan Breck Stewart, a dashing and unwavering Jacobite Highlander and outlaw, a fervent and heroic supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie. I would like to prove in this paper that the novel can be read as a documented denunciation of what is forcefully described as an imperialist situation, based on the same politics of clearances and proscription that were implemented in overseas colonies : Kidnapped is an act of literary and political resistance, an alter-version of history reclaiming territorial possession for those (not so) “wild Highlanders” (101). 2 All the references to the novel will be to the following edition: Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapp (.)ģ Kidnapped is set in the Scottish Highlands in 1751, in a context of authoritative English occupation of the territory following the heavy defeat of the Jacobites at the battle of Culloden in 1746. ![]()
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