OBSERVATIONS

First, I note a few surface details.

Outline
- Rising action – Keawe buys the imp and later sells it
- Crisis – Keawe again buys the imp although he doubts he can sell it
- Resolution – a sailor buys the imp from Keawe

The story centers on possession of the imp (primarily by Keawe, as noted above).  The full progression of ownership follows:

Ownership
- Old man
- Keawe
- Keawe's friend
- Unspecified others
- Keawe
- Kokua
- Sailor
- Keawe (attempted; sailor refused)

The motivations of the owners varies:

Motivation**
- Old man, Keawe (first), Keawe’s friend, others – reward
- Keawe (second) – reward
- Kokua –love
- Sailor – reward
- Keawe (attempted) – love

Note the relationship between these motives and the story arc.  Reward drives Keawe’s first two purchases (rising action, crisis), but love drives the third (before resolution).  Observe also the twin kinds of reward compelling the early purchases.  The first reward: obtaining prosperity; the second reward: preserving prosperity (including Kokua).

ANALYSIS

The story’s specifics (ownership and motivation) stage these events:

- Desire can reward (Keawe seeks prosperity and love and is satisfied.)
- Desire can curse (In his quest, Keawe uses the imp.)
- Reward brings uncertainty (Banishment threatens all Keawe’s gains.)
- Love absorbs curse (Kokua buys imp from Keawe.)
- Curse will destroy (Someone must bear imp’s damnation.)


These dichotomies follow:
- Reward is tarnished without the curse (by uncertainty) or with the curse (by destruction).
- One can avoid the curse but not uncertainty.+
- Love can deliver from the curse but cannot escape from the curse.

(+Note: This is because Stevenson portrays Keawe’s desire as a constant from the story’s beginning.  His unavoidable desire leads him to navigate the other events of the story.)


Two final questions:
- Does Stevenson present an ideal choice to resolve the story’s dichotomies?
- Does the imp simply represent the curse or something more?

First, would Stevenson moralize?  I presume the possibility, considering his dramatic shift from a Victorian upbringing to a life of travel and ensuing love of the islander lifestyle (the backdrop for the short story). First, recall the two motives (reward or love) and the consistent negative conseqeunces (uncertainty, curse, destruction).  All of these occurred both with or without a connection to the imp.  Keawe pursued the good life before meeting the imp’s owner and in the period of freedom from its grasp. Likewise, his love for Kokua began without connection to the imp and continued long after.  I summarize all these possible combinations in the following chart:

Choices

REWARD
1. Without imp: uncertainty
2. With imp: curse

LOVE
3. Toward the cursed: destruction
4. Toward the uncursed: no destruction

The story progresses from a focus on reward (first half) to a focus on love (second half).  The last option (love without destruction) is ideal; every other option entails some loss.  Even Kokua’s and Keawe’s choices to love each other by taking back the curse is bittersweet.  Each one’s sacrifice removes the other’s greatest source of happiness, an end that could have been avoided if Keawe had never bought the imp.  The implied lesson?  Avoid choices now that will sabotage love’s good intentions later.

The surprise ending may add an additional message.  If the story warns against complicating love, why does it provide an escape hatch, the drunken sailor who accepts damnation and buys the bottle?  Stevenson could simply be softening the blow of his cautionary tale.  If so, why did he include the elaborate curse that necessitated such an ending? I think the injection of a supernatural temptation portrays real life: wild possibilities coupled with high consequences.  The ending modifies the imaginary scenario to convey another reality: though love cannot erase a damning past, somehow, escape is possible.

If the supernatural elements comment on life, the imp itself may also have a specific meaning.  The unusual law of the imp (sell for less or receive damnation) makes it a constantly growing threat.  Its sinister descriptions (“dark,” “fiery,” etc) and concealed evil (glancing in the bottle stuns the owner with horror) also portray the imp as a potent living force.  Perhaps Stevenson portrays imperfection and evil in humanity as this palpable reality, present in the world and available as a means of man’s advancement and destruction.  As an advocate of Semoan rights who lived in the islands during multiple colonial power-struggles, he vividly observed evil’s corrupting power.  He knew that the world often suffers when people allow the end to justify the means.  And when those people are us—the otherwise kind-hearted Keawes—Stevenson knew that the fiend within us doesn’t have to win in the end.

"The Struggle for Love"
"The Longing for Home"
So desperate to prove
That our hearts aren't alone

While death looms wherewith
To make dust of our flesh
We seek in a myth
Our souls to enmesh

With a hero of hope
A rescuing source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Which might silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

But it's not our mere lack
Which causes most dread
It's the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For its rank ins'bordination

We just want our own way
And to write our own story
So we plunge on astray
To seek our own glory

To play artist or muse
Or idol or chief
Any self-styled ruse
To assuage us of grief

Any measure to show
A lasting signif'cance
So that someone would know
Our unique magnif'cence

For our beauty's been marred
And we crave a redemption
Of souls twisted and scarred
By fulfillment's exemption

But, alas, we will find
That search hard as we may
There's not one of our kind
Who can carry the tray

Upon which the weight
Of our souls has been laid
For who can e'er tolerate
Its gross debts unpaid?

Such suff'cating mass
Of defects and ills
Pressed 'gainst delicate glass
Of egos and wills

Still more ghastly to bear
Is devotion unbound
For with millstone to wear
Its master is drowned

'Neath a sea of foul yeast
And becomes the enslaved
To a hungering beast
To a worship depraved

For the heart is a tiger
And must have its fill
So it raises a man higher
With a kiss before the ****

Not intentionally, of course,
Does it slaughter its idol
But of hurricane force
Is this longing so vital

And as pedestal turns
So quickly to altar
Our wounded pride burns
When our gods and alms falter

And the fire of its rage
Turns upon its obsession
Tiger breaks out of cage
To reclaim self-possession

It bites and it tears
What it once so adored
And pride no longer cares
If it kills its false lord

But upon such demise
The soul screams in terror
For it's broken its prize
And can't take back its error

It begs and it pleads
To restore what's been lost
But at end knows it needs
To consider the cost

Of the damage untold
It has left in the wake
For hearts can't be controlled
With a gush or a shake

No, men's hearts are like bombs
Which so easily explode
Once the pin is removed
All past wrongs will re-load

So the prey becomes hunter
When the tiger attacks
For he does not want her
To see what he lacks

As he, too, had put
Her up in wrong place
But now steps his foot
Upon her shamed face

To now pulverize
As his own heart's been crushed
To blind out her eyes
And to see her lips hushed

For with words idly spoken
She'd stabbed at his soul
And had left his pride broken
By her judgments so cold

She had not meant to harm
Knew not e'en that he heard
But one cannot disarm
A thought put to word

Worse than not knowing this
She no longer knew him
And her once imagined bliss
Proved a nullified whim

Oh, what games and delusions
We play and we build
Upon empty illusions
And dreams unfulfilled

Yet strangely it's when
Our worst fears come true
We can finally transcend
All those old tales we grew

Out of ego and void
Out of sorrow and pain
When our nerves felt annoyed
And our hearts felt too vain

'Cause when ego is puffed
It is primed, too, to pop
And with pinprick is snuffed
Like a pest-blighted crop

So imagine much more
When a venom's injected
Right into its core
And its heart is rejected

But can you also not see
How it needs such a burst
To begin to get free
From its self-absorbed curse?

Except now feels the matter
Of our soul's isolation
Fiercer still with the shatter
Of our pet consolation

So we wait and we wonder
If we've missed the true meaning
Of the frightening thunder
In our heart's constant screaming

Whether homesick or lost
Whether lonely or grieved
Locked in bleak Winter's frost
We find little reprieve

Yet we know we've been made
For the glory of Spring
Some card's still to be played
Some grand song still to sing

Inexpressible yearning
For some secret we know
But can't speak for the burning
Repercussions of woe

Not some mere melancholy
Nor nostalgic forlorn
Not the musings of folly
But a sense that we're torn

From primordial root
And from headwaters fresh
Yet much deeper to boot
From our spiritual breath

'Tis an ache not for wares,
Appreciation or fame
But a fight just for air
Against strangling shame

For we're naked, we know
And with all we devise
Our most flawed parts still show
To a pure set of eyes

Like we're walking around
With no covering intact
But thin hospital gown
With wide split up the back

So we hide our true face
Aim to be what we're not
Work our blots to erase
Lest our schemes should be caught

Be 't by friend or by foe
We dare not risk the pain
Of humiliation's blow
On top of our stain

But instead of relief
Anguish grows louder till
This life's loneliest grief
Paralyzes the will

And last hope all but dies
On doubt's bed of despair
While embittered heart cries
That its lot's too unfair

Yet on outside we play
Through our unconscious mind
Man's collective charade
That everything's fine

Like some pact we'd all sworn
To uphold and obey
To protect from the scorn
Of society's sway

If we run with the flow
'Stead of strive 'gainst the tide
We might make enough show
To salvage our pride

We forget that conceit
Is what caused all the mess
Through a serpent's deceit
And a couple's wrong guess

'Twas they first tasted shame
And then hid in a garden
Sewing fig leaves as claim
To secure their own pardon

Yet in horror they knew
They had squandered the Prize
And must flee from the view
Of a pure set of eyes

Now same state of awry
Runs through each of their seed
Inborn and borne by
Like the thorniest ****

Whose nettles pierce deep
And infect every part
While roots tangle and sweep
Through the mind and the heart

It mocks what we've lost
Torments every dim hope
To constrict and accost
Like a noose-tightening rope

Still, hope won't be decayed
Smold'ring fires yet burn
Sparking hints that we're made
For bright Eden's return

This redemption we crave
Is no phantom's false plea
But as crestfallen wave
Hides itself in the sea

It's been veiled in plain sight
Big as all of our stories
Deep as mankind's full plight
And as high as its glories

Cloaked in every ambition
That we have to get in
To some exclusive coalition
For its favors to win

Lurks a bleeding predilection
Frustrated from birth
A desire for election
To bestow on us worth

Lured by scent of a promise
To be chosen and known
Like the warmth of a mom's kiss
Given only to her own

We search tree after tree
For sweet intimacy's nectar
From a fruit that will be
Our secret connecter

To hope's nourishing breast
To life's honey from comb
To an undying rest
To a straight way toward home

One to wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of a garden again
Cast from pure tree of life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

All our conflicts, comp'tition,
Confusion and blame
Find first cause in perdition
That's invaded our frame

Like the foulest disease
The most cankerous rot
Grown by monstrous degrees
Hatched by Lucifer's plot

This story's no ****'s attack
Nor archaic folklore
But the earth-shattering fact
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

And it's not our mere lack
which causes most dread
But the earth-shattering fact
That our spirits are dead

Cut off from their Source
In a black alienation
Humanity's curse
For it's rank ins'bordination


And yet...


This is also the story
Of how those same eyes
The Possessor of Glory
Looked with love and heart cries

On the crown of creation
His reflection of Self
Made His own treasured nation
The heirs of His wealth

Now broken and lost
All banished from Garden
And He knew the full cost
To grant them His pardon

Had known long before
He had e'er even made
That first man of yore
Yet handcrafts anyway

For His love is so strong
And He wanted to share
His intimacy with a throng
His own children to bear

So with souls in convulsion
From their rebellious misdeed
Just before their expulsion
He promised a Seed

One untainted from sin
Who could take its great boulder
And the weight of His kin
Upon His own shoulder

A Hero of hope
A rescuing Source
To widen our scope
And give pith to our course

An unshakable tie
An attachment at core
Who would silence the cry
That our hearts are at war

With a pure set of eyes
Full of fire and proficient
To dispel all the lies
That our souls aren't deficient

For those eyes are His own
And He'd pay the full fee
By His body alone
To set our hearts free

He's hope's nourishing breast
He's life's honey from comb
He's our undying rest
He's our straight way toward home

He will wipe away tears
And allay deepest doubt
Which proceeds from worst fears
Of our being locked out

Of the Garden again
Cast from pure Tree of Life
Dim remembrance of when
Mankind first entered strife

But 'twas on another tree
That sweet intimacy's nectar
Was secured tight when He
Became sacred Connector

And the thorns of our curse
Were pressed onto His head
With not one there to nurse
As the Son of Man bled

Then the wrath for our sin
Was absorbed as He cried
And the foul curse was broken
When the Son of God died

But death couldn't keep Him long
Nor His glory dispose
And we found our lost song
When the King of kings rose!

The debt had been paid
He had finished the work
The tide 'gainst us was swayed
We weren't left in our lurk

And we've only to now
Just repent and believe
To open and allow
Our hearts to receive

Our Divine Fountainhead
Our covering complete
To sup from His bread
And to sit at His feet

To worship the One
For Whom we were made
By Whom we've been won
Whom forever we've craved

The One Who can bear
Our hearts' full devotion
The One Who won't tear
At our souls' raw emotion

The One Who will be
Sweet eternity's song
Who with lasting decree
Will...right...every...wrong

Here I will start, to pour out my heart
As if I somehow can change the stars….
But since I can’t
All I do, is curse the universe curse the universe
Not in a loud voice not in my head
I curse the universe with a lower head
A big fat tear and crossed eyebrows
I curse the universe, curse the universe

I jump a little and fold my hands for all the trouble my head has caused
Why do we do things that hurt us
Why can’t we be easy on ourselves
I look around and it’s just me
Everyone is fine and a happy cherry
What am I doing, how do I understand
I jump a little more ..and curse the universe
I curse the universe ..

I mix my medicine
I sleep a little more
I try to forget
I hug myself
I smile to strangers
I be nice to my parents
I feed the street cats
I talk fancy
I give money to homeless people
I eat my meals
I do all the things I see happy people do

But how do I put this, it doesn’t ******* work!
So I curse the universe, curse the universe
I met a person, who curses me for cursing the universe
(actually more than one person)
They don’t talk much, it shows in their eyes and their happy lives
So then I understand,
What they all do
Is curse anyone who knows what’s true
we can’t be happy we show we’re happy
It makes us strong to know we’re better than all
So I ******* curse the universe, I curse the universe